14 Reasons I Love You
by korel.c
Summary: For my girl. 14 pairings, 14 reasons, pick your ship and set it sail. Originally for Valentine's Day, and now just 14 Reasons I Love You for every day - one, for every year I've known you.
1. Kurtofsky

**Now:** Kurtofsky **Next:** Puckurt

If no reviews ever are shown, no alerts, no favorites, and only one hit - yours - I will be happy, my muse. This is my love letter to you, after all, and everyone else may hang.

* * *

**14 Reasons Why I Love You**

**

* * *

**_4. But your first valentine deserves to be a real present, and it deserves to be terribly awkward. All first times are...unless there's someone guiding it. So all I can offer you from an ocean away is fourteen reasons and fourteen pairings, and my love, and maybe a greeting card. When I get back, by all hopes it will be your third valentine and...third time lucky, you know. So I...I'll buy you chocolates, then, and be all sappy. And stuff. Because hipsters disdain sappiness, but I disdain hipsters, and so it falls to me. I love you, sweet muse, and this love will not stop._

* * *

He watched Kurt from his vantage point, cursing himself all the while.

This...these _feelings, _they were unnatural. Wrong. His father said so. He wasn't supposed to feel this way. He was supposed to fall in love with a good-looking girl, go to work at the local factory, day in day out, just like his father.

So, what if he didn't want to b e like his father? But being attracted to a _guy, _that was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong unnatural freakish...his father could, and did, go on at length about it, having worked with two very affectionate men, once upon a time. His father had told him to harrass that girl called Rachel, which wasn't too difficult since she was so annoying anyway.

Pick on her clothing until she only wore cashmere, pick on her voice until she talked faster, get everyone else to hate her. Dave knew exactly how to get everyone to like or dislike one another.

Liking him...that was a different story. He didn't care if anyone disliked him, really, which wasn't an issue since everyone was far too scared of him to hate his guts. He walked a very fine, balanced line, in getting everyone else to leave him alone, so that he could pursue his own goals.

So, Kurt. Walking through the halls, free and easy...just a few more months of having other jocks bully him, then he could sweep in and take him under his wing, and Kurt would _love _him then...

"Yo, Dave," Azimio called, walking up behind him.

Dave turned and sneered. "What do you want?"

"Easy, easy," Azimio said, waving his hands. "I was just wondering, which of the girls claimed you for their valentine's? We're in _high school _now, you know?"

"You don't subscribe to that stupid tradition, do you, Azimio?"

"Oh no, I...Dave, I really...I-"

Dave turned his back on Azimio, until he could hear the footsteps fall away.

At this time, he knew Kurt had Biology, which meant he'd take the long halls to the labs with the doors. It would be futile to walk past him then, since on sight of his letterman jacket Kurt would duck out and be lost, and Dave couldn't follow him without tipping his hand.

Tipping his hand...power plays. In this school, power was paramount. Sure, Noah Puckerman had the top of the chain for their year...for now, with Quinn Fabray, who'd just made Cheerio, backing his base. But in the middle ranks, Dave walked alone and untouched, with Kurt Hummel at the very bottom, among the outcasts, newly left behind with the news that he was out of his closet. He knew Kurt. He would jump at the thought of rising on the chain again. He knew people like that. And even though Hummel was a freak, he was still predictable.

So.

Doubting himself...

Tipping his hand...

Dave sighed, quietly, and made his way to the locker corridors.

He picked Kurt's lock and cleaned the locker of the pink slime one of the guys had sprayed inside, then slipped the valentine in.

Let the boy stew. Let him wonder. Dave would sit back, and watch, and wait.

* * *

Kurt ducked under a bright pink banner and looked away from the hearts in the halls. The other boys and girls, who'd once followed him as a leader, looked away from him, talking and gossiping to each other about who liked who, and what they should do about it.

He sighed, clutching his books to him. It had been difficult, adjusting to high school.

The heavy presence of a jock swept by, and Kurt pressed himself to his locker, praying that the jock wouldn't notice him. He didn't.

Coming out of the closet...he wouldn't regret that, for the world, but looking at the absence of friends he now had to suffer through, it wasn't fun or pretty at all. Without allies, the years of high school loomed ahead, torturous.

Valentine's Day, today. With fondness Kurt recalled previous years, where girls would fight for the chance to be his valentine, but he'd had to (gently) turn them down. Or not-so-gently. But now?

Perhaps...he should have accepted.

Today was Valentine's Day. It looked like he'd be alone, today.

Kurt opened the lock (reminding himself to change it soon, when he could afford to) and prepared himself for the 'surprises' that would wait inside.

Nothing.

What...

One little heart-shaped card.

His first valentine in high school.

He didn't...know...

He opened the card.

A picture of his face, smiling. XOXO's on the previous page. Words: 'Happy Valentine's Day.'

Kurt's heart beat a little faster, and a corner of his lips lifted. He closed the card.

On the back, in different handwriting - "You owe me. I'll collect it, someday."

His heart fell. Kurt sighed, closed his locker and slid down it. Of course. Nothing ever came without a price, did it? Not in high school.

* * *

** Now: **Kurtofsky **Next: **Puckurt


	2. Puckurt

**Prev:** Kurtofsky **Now:** Puckurt **Next:** Puckleberry

Fourteen stories. Fourteen pairings in this fic. One, for each year I've known you.

* * *

**14 Reasons Why I Love You**

**

* * *

**_10. I have read so many love stories. (I know and you should know, you must know, that I wanted to write your name there, etch it with my own hand in my own ink, my blood if I must) I have read so many love stories. And I know how they all end. So many variations. And they always, always, end in tears. There are so many ways my love for you could go. So many ways you could say no. None of the love stories, realistically, should say yes. So all I can do is try. Day after day. All I want to do is try. For you. I know that sounded melodramatic. Melodrama only seems melodramatic because we're both young. I could die here. I may. If we were old, or even just old/er/ this would be a heartbreak, and melancholic. But we're young, and in peaceful times._

_But I love you. And we live for the present...

* * *

_

"Mon garcon," Kurt's superior said fondly, and let him run out, out into the sunshine.

Sitting at the looms all day could do wonders for one's perception of the outside. To others, the sun outside was weak, pallid, not fit to even walk a dog or to plant flowers in, flowers for the dead, on the fields of the Somme. But sitting in those small, dreary rooms with only the steady bump-thwack of the looms...it made the sunshine all the more worthwhile.

The air helped, too. Next to the looms, the only people left were the old and disabled, their hands raw and sore. Kurt himself had once had smooth hands. No more. Blisters and calluses lined his hands now, but Kurt counted himself lucky; at least he'd not lost fingers to the heavy edge of the loom. The blankets they weaved, the bandages, they would all go to the front, where his best friends lay, suffering in the cold, cold mud. Mud mixed with snow...a dirty slush.

Kurt gritted his teeth as he walked past the conscientious objectors, those idiots who called for peace. Yes, France was a peaceful country, and not weak, but they were weakening it while friends died on the border. He considered throwing a rock at them, but simply lifted his nose and moved on. He wrapped his coat tighter about him, the one coat that hadn't been taken to be repartitioned for the rations. The chill winds whipped his hair about, lashed at his face. Kurt rubbed his hands together, and headed for home.

His house was too empty. His papa, Burt, had long since headed for the front, holding the hills at Dieppe. They said the situation was getting worse, day by day, and eventually, they would have to call in allies...likely the Canadians. Kurt worried for his papa, but he had valuable skills as a mechanic, an engineer, so he would not be on the front-line. At least, not until the situation was desperate and the last breaths of freedom came down to their efforts.

But to be French is to fight for freedom, but to be French is to know when war is put aside, for one day, to celebrate not death, but life. Life and love. And it is Valentine's Day today, February 14, 1940, and Kurt is un gar on qu'est adonn aux plaisirs, as his mother would have said, smiling...

Kurt slipped on his gloves, the fur settling warm and sleek over his fingers, and abruptly the cold was less. Today he would visit Noah Puckerman again, '_Lieutenant_ Noah Puckerman sill-vooh-play', Lieutenant "Puck" Puckerman who made his heart lie heavy in his chest and his throat dry when Noah spoke to him, Kurt's breath coming shallower, heat rushing to his face and elsewhere. Lieutenant Noah Puckerman, an American soldier who had joined the Legionne Etrangeres. And he was strange, this soldier. Certainment, he had one broken leg, badly broken enough that he could not walk, and he somehow was important or just good enough to be posted to guard this sleepy town, to train the men here, drill them and get them to hate him. And then love him and thank him, out on the front lines of the war against the Nazis.

Nazis._ Nazis._ If he ever had his hands around a Nazi throat he would _wring_ him until he strangled and he died...just like a chicken, just like the idiot chicken that ran away from maman when Kurt was nine.

Kurt's feet marked the familiar path between his house and Noah's, his worn shoes clumping on the cobblestones and pavement beneath his feet. Above his head, wispy clouds, carefree, and captured zeppelins cast shadows on the snowy ground.

Today was Valentine's Day. Perhaps, today, he could assist Noah with his crutches, and walk him to their favorite cafe downtown, the breads warm and freshly baked. No matter about rationing: French breads would always be freshly-baked, every day. The cheese and wine though...perhaps not so good.

But ahead lay Noah's little cottage, its roof caked with snow, powdery snow. The windows were frosted shut, and yet Noah would be inside. Kurt saw no Army car parked outside, and no tracks marked the snow. So Noah was at home, today.

Kurt knocked on the door. "Noah!"

"Kurt," Noah called out through the door, his voice thin with strain. "Don't come in yet."

"Why?" Kurt asked, but made his hand drop from the handle. He _hurt_, hurt for Noah, whose voice fluttered, when before even through the pain his voice was warm and always reassuring, always confident.

"Because," Noah said, and his voice seemed closer, closer than when he was calling from his bed or from his chair, "I-"

The lock jiggled under his hand, and Kurt looked down, his eyes widening and his breath coming quicker.

"Can-"

The door swung open, and Kurt looked up into dark brown eyes, shining with mischief.

"-Walk."

"Noah?" Kurt said, his hands reaching out to help, assist, escort.

"No, no," Noah said, seizing a hat from his hat-rack and tightening his belt about his waist. "There will be none of that today. Today, I will walk alone. If I fall, I will get back up."

"Non!" Kurt said, shaking his head, making hair whip into his face. "I will help you back up!"

"You are a very good friend, mong ahmee."

"-Mon ami."

"That. You are a very good friend, but I must learn how to walk alone again. I will not be here forever."

"Do not think about that," Kurt demanded, grasping Noah's hand in both of his. "Please. It is Valentine's Day today..."

"Ah, yes," Noah said, straightening, and wincing as he tested his weight on his legs. "We should go to our cafe. Lead the way."

* * *

Kurt's boots crunched through the snow, the one thick pair of woollen socks he wore dampening from the wet seeping through his worn bootheels.

"Are you sure you are feeling fine, Noah?" Kurt asked, still worried.

"I am fine," Noah said. "The snow is deadening the pain."

Kurt could see the pain in his face in every step. Perhaps Noah could hide it from the world, but Kurt had spent so much time with him, listening to his stories, making him that - mon dieu - horrible coffee he liked so much, seeing him in pain. He knew when Noah was simply enduring, but he couldn't pick Noah up like he wanted.

"Gahrsawn," Noah said.

"-Garcon," Kurt corrected.

"-That. Garsawn,"

"-Garcon."

"GARCON! I AM FINE!"

Noah's exclamation was somewhat ruined by a zeppelin passing overhead, its engines drowning out his voice.

Kurt giggled.

Noah closed his eyes briefly, his mouth moving as if he were praying for patience.

"The last one," Kurt said, and Noah stood behind him, his hand on Kurt's shoulder. The server packed the chignon (badly made, but with so many ingredients rationed, the best they could do) into a small newspaper wrap, and passed it to them. Her eyes had widened at Noah's presence.

"You can walk?" she blurted, and clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Oui, mademoiselle," Noah bowed, took her hand over the counter, and placed a kiss to it. She giggled, her other hand over her mouth.

Kurt gritted his teeth and muttered swear words under his breath. Noah could pronounce 'mademoiselle' but could not pronounce 'garcon'? Imbecile.

"I had not known you were such a charmer, Noah."

"I can only see the truth, mademoiselle, que tu est tres beaux."

"Belle," Kurt muttered under his breath..

"-Belle," Noah said, hastily.

The server giggled. "Beaux? Oh, Kurt. He was speaking to you!"

Kurt looked down, trying to hide his blush. "He was not."

Noah looked over at him. "Ah, we Américain, we believe in _l'égalité_."

Noah seized his hand and placed a kiss on it, his lips warm and chapped. Kurt froze, heat rushing to his face. He was uncomfortably certain that he was blushing. From the laughter that the server was failing to suppress, he was.

Kurt looked over at Noah, frowning. "Where is all this French coming from, Noah? When last we talked, you were horrendous." A corner of his lips twisted. "Not that you still aren't horrible. But you're better."

"Such praise! Ah, from delightful, beaux Kurt! I got a dictionnaire pour Francais."

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Oh, Kurt, Noah," the server said. "I forgot. It is Valentine's Day, non? As you are such a lovely couple..." She turned and headed into the small room at the back of the cafe.

"We are not," Kurt said, but it sounded weak without Noah's warm voice supporting him. "Noah?"

"Hmm?" A warm hand placed itself at the small of Kurt's back. Kurt froze for the second time in as many minutes.

Kurt turned slowly. Noah gazed at him, his eyes steady. A smile curled his lips. Kurt swallowed. "You mean..."

"Chocolat!" the server interrupted, returning. "Pour Valentine's Day."

"Amelie!" Noah said. "You should not have!"

When did Noah learn this girl's name? Kurt began to mutter again, under his breath. Noah's hand slipped further down, and squeezed. Kurt's eyes shot open, wide open, and he stood, stiff as a board. Amelie giggled, clapping one hand over her mouth.

"No, no," Noah said. "These chocolates are for you and your boyfriend, no?"

Her face shut down.

"Noah-" Kurt hissed, a moment too late.

"We are setting flowers out for him tomorrow," she said, her tone flat.

"Oh, no. Désolé, Amelie. I am sorry for your loss."

"What fault did you have?" Amelie said. "He was reckless. He was. Always reckless." She wrung her hands. "But that is only my problem. You...enjoy your love. Please. For me. Take the chocolat."

"Yes, Amelie," Noah said. "Come, Kurt."

Kurt locked eyes with her. It will be alright, his eyes said.

I know, hers said. We are French. We will love again.

* * *

They sat in the corner of the cafe, next to the window, Noah resting his leg on another chair, both of them watching the steam from Noah's coffee rise.

"It is Valentine's Day, Noah," Kurt said, slowly. "Surely you owe me another story?"

"A story? On Valentine's Day? Oh, Kurt. You make such a big deal out of my ordinary life."

"But it is all Américain. I have never heard of such things."

"We are not so different, Kurt. We are human, as are the French."

"But so fascinating! Do you really have chocolat, as much as you want to eat? Hershey's, making it? Cars and clothes and parties? No rations?"

Noah looked guilty for a brief moment. "Yes, yes, all of that."

"Clothes? Good clothes?"

"Yes," Noah said, and drank deeply from his coffee, guilt and caffeine sharp and bitter on his tongue. "Those too."

Kurt tore a hank of bread from the chignon they were sharing and placed it in his mouth.

"It all seems so amazing."

"Perhaps..."

"But today is Valentine's Day. Will you tell me of the girlfriend you left in America?" Kurt did not know why he tormented himself so, listening to Noah tell of his fondness for his girlfriend while he himself...he...Noah...while Noah made his heart lie heavy in his chest, a piece of lead.

"Lauren?"

"Yes, her. She seems such a character."

"Oh, she is." Puck finished his coffee, and stared down into the depths of it.

"Did you spend Valentine's Day with her, before?"

"Oh yes, several times."

"So tell me a story."

"The first time I spent a Valentine's Day with her...she had always wanted a bicycle, you see. I built her a bicycle out of scraps from the junkyard that my uncle owned. To think of it, it was a little lopsided. One of the wheels was bigger than the other, the seat was torn, and the handlebars skewed off to one side. But I painted it red and I carried it to her house at six o'clock in the morning, hoping she would not be awake yet."

"But...?"

"She was." Puck looked at the bottom of his cup, at the dregs and the remnants of the coffee that tasted like acidic mud. "And she looked at me, all covered in rust and paint splotches, and she laughed and said that she wanted a bicycle but she'd much rather have me ride her, then clapped her hands over her face and peeked out behind them."

Kurt could not keep himself from laughing.

"So I said to her, 'What do I do with this bicycle then?' and she said, 'put another seat on it, and we can ride it together. Then she walked with me to the junkyard, and I built her another, and we rode our two-seating bicycle for the rest of the year."

Kurt looked down, but smiled shyly.

"But what about you? Did you find a nice girl for Valentine's?"

"I do not want to talk about it."

"Oh, heartbreak, eh," Puck said. "I understand."

"No, it is, I..." Kurt struggled with it, but the truth should come out, this was Valentine's Day and Noah could walk again, and if he could walk he could also /leave/, the Army could get him to move away and Amelie was right, she was right and he needed to embrace this - his heart beat fast but heavy, his body throbbing as he gathered up his courage. Outside, on the street, many birds flapped up into the air. He need to say this

"No, Noah," Kurt said. "No girls. I...Je suis adonné aux plaisirs. I embrace the pleasure. I am homosexuel. Gay."

"Oh," Noah said. He looked down.

Kurt pushed his chair back, the chair making a noisy scrape on the floor. "I have been attracted to you from the moment you told me the first story, Noah."

"Oh," Noah said. He looked down.

"And I...you do not feel the same way. I understand." Kurt turned his head sharply and walked away. But his heart was freer than it had been. It was enough. Enough.

* * *

"Kurt! Kurt!"

Kurt had walked fast, his face beginning to burn in embarrassment as what he had said caught up to him, really caught up to him. He walked quickly, his head down to block the chill, the sharp chill of the wind. He had passed the factories long ago, their clouds of smog darkening the sky behind him. Ahead, only sky. Clouds, carefree. Under his feet, pavement, solid pavement, with snowbanks piled up around the evergreen trees. The streetlights were off, even now, coming into sunset; electricity was rationed, also.

"Ugghh!"

Kurt whirled.

He would recognise Noah's voice anywhere.

Noah picked himself off the ground, every movement stiff and full of pain, and Kurt brought his gloved hand to his lips but could not seem to make himself move.

"Don't run," Noah said, weakly, and hobbled toward him again.

Noah towered over him, and Kurt turned his face away.

"Don't run from me," Noah said, and ran his coarse glove over Kurt's jaw. "Please, never run from me."

"I..."

A hand, clad in coarse wool, tilted his chin up and then Noah's lips were on his, warm and chapped and bitter with coffee, and Kurt's eyes closed.

"Better?" Noah asked, the sun falling around them in patterns that moved, as the leaves of the tree next to them shifted in the wind. The light was so gold...the sunset, l'heure d'or. The golden hour, when the sun turned everything beautiful and sun-washed, the couleurs melting into each other, so melancholy.

"Mmhm," Kurt nodded, pressing his chin into Noah's glove.

"Again?" Noah said, and tilted his head forward again.

Kurt's hands came up to curl around Noah's neck, and he stood up on his toes to kiss him again. This time Noah tasted of chocolat, bitter and sweet, dark and precious.

"Again," Kurt said, his voice small, but infinitely wanting. "Again."

Noah's hands came to the small of Kurt's back, holding him as though he were fragile.

"Again."

Chocolat and chignon.

The engines of a zeppelin, overhead.

* * *

"Kurt...I..." Noah said, as they broke for air. "I am...I am going back to active service. My orders. They're here."

Kurt blinked, and then his expression was fierce.

"Again," he demanded, and Noah pushed him back.

"No, Kurt, I am...I'm flying out. Soon. Tomorrow night. By the captured zeppelin. I can't...we can't..."

"You must," Kurt said, and fisted the front of Noah's coat. "Have a _happy_ memory, Noah. Or at least, give me one. Give me hope, in this forsaken war."

"I..."

"We are _French, _Noah," Kurt said, his other hand clenching at his side. "We believe that...love...is something that must be _experienced_...before we die. And I...if I die tomorrow-"

"_No-_"

"I will die _content_, Noah, for with you, I am-" he took a deep breath and let it out as a cloud, carefree now, his heart light, "-free."

"I...I don't know what to _say_, Kurt."

"Then don't _say _anything. Kiss me. And come with me, home."

Noah fought to smile. "Your place, or mine?"

Kurt gave him a look, infinitely sarcastic. "What do _you_ think?"

* * *

"Do you think, we can spare a little of Amelie's chocolate...to be melted over the stove? I know what I would do, with warm chocolat..."

"You _would _think of that, Noah."

"Would you like to 'experience' that?"

"Oh, _yes-"

* * *

_

"If St. Valentine's was _anything_ as lucky as I, Kurt, I am surprised he did not die of a heart attack."

"Hmm?"

"But he did not have _you_."

Chocolat, coffee, chignon.

Bitter and sweet and precious.

* * *

"Kurt, I..."

"It is enough now, mon ami."

"Yes, I know. I...want you to have this."

"But, Noah, this is...precious. I never knew that you had...you had..."

"_Take it. _It is only metal, and I want you to remember who I was, instead of what I did."

"I...thank you, Noah."

"Remember me by it."

"I will." A devilish smile. "If nothing else, I will remember the night. I am still not walking correctly, Noah..."

"And now we match."

"And now we match."

* * *

"One last time, under these trees?"

"Oui, Noah."

"Again."

"And again and again and again."

The sounds of zeppelins, the sound of war, ever closer. Ever closer. Ever...

* * *

**Prev: **Kurtofsky **Now: **Puckurt **Next: **Puckleberry


	3. Puckleberry

**Prev:** Puckurt **Now:** Puckleberry **Next:** Faberry

My reasons have nothing to do with the fic. They're kind of inspirational starting points, but some of them spiral away. Yet for all of that, my reasons are true.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You

* * *

**

_9. For many men it's the lure, the hunt, the chase, that attracts them. But I always feel like I'm behind you...always chasing to catch up. And you make me better for it. You're encountering things, problems, solutions, in worlds I'd never be able to run in. But I should be able to. And all I have are these meager, paltry offerings. As Yeats said, 'Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths, enwrought with golden and silver light...I would spread the cloths under your feet. But I, being poor, have only my dreams - so I would spread my dreams...'

* * *

_

"No," Rachel said, breathing faster. "I can't. I won't. You can't make me."

"Oh yeah?" Puck asked, his arms keeping her in that one spot, her back pressed against the locker. "I think I'll take that as a _challenge."_

Rachel started breathing through her mouth so she wouldn't have to smell him, and kept quiet. Like what her daddy said: maybe if she ignored him for long enough, he'd go away.

"Oi. Look at me. Look. At. Me." His hand came up to rest on her chin, and forced her up, until his words fell, warm, wispy, on her lips. "You are...someone...different. And that knucklehead that you think you like, he won't see that."

His arms fell away and his footsteps receded, and Rachel panted against her locker, trying her hardest not to think about the almost-kiss.

* * *

The first time Noah Puckerman hunted down Rachel Berry, they were five. His mom had brought him over to their house, in order to 'build up Jewish relations'. In reality they were supposed to see if their kids were compatible, because his mother was mercenary like that, and the first signs of her drinking problem had already begun to manifest. She was always looking for money...but at least she really loved Puck then, and tried to restrain herself from drinking too much, especially with another baby in her belly. Rachel kept herself aloof from him, walking away with her head up, so of course to puncture her ego Puck poked her at every opportunity, in as many creative ways as possible, burst water bombs over her head (one of Rachel's fathers actually supplied him with the balloons, because Rachel's reaction to this betrayal was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen. Puck really, really liked Ian. The man had a _wicked _sense of humor.)

After he'd taken it a bit too far, Rachel had gone off crying into the park. Puck'd rolled his eyes, took the castigation from his mom and her other dad, and went Rachel-hunting.

If he'd known what she'd do to him when he found her, he would have worn groin protection.

* * *

The second time Noah Puckerman hunted down Rachel Berry, they were nine. In elementary school together, the other girls realised that she was _different_ because she didn't have a mommy, only two dads, and they were absolutely relentless in teasing her about it. For Rachel, who had self-confidence issues and only wanted to fit in, it was devastating.

She ran off crying, into the woods.

Having had a similar experience four years earlier (half a lifetime ago) - plus a few more experiences from visits afterward - Puck could almost _track _Rachel in the snow.

And...there she was, up a tree.

"Rachel," he called. "Come down, please?"

"No!" she called from up top. "They'll just tease me again!"

"So I'll protect you! We got's to stick together, right? Us?"

"No! You'll just tease me instead of them!"

"I won't, Rachel, not like them. I like your dads, remember?"

"Daddy likes you..."

"Cause he's cool."

"Pff," she scoffed. "You're nuts."

"Yeah, my nuts are feeling, like, 'ow'."

She giggled. "Okay, okay...fine. But you've got to promise, okay? Or you're gonna hurt again."

"Yup, okay!"

So Rachel got into becoming one of the guys.

* * *

The third time Puck went Rachel-hunting was when they were thirteen. She'd been one of the guys for the past four years (forever), but then in the last year of middle school she'd moved toward Kurt Hummel instead of hanging out with them and their 'dirtiness', she'd said with a wrinkled nose. The girls had grown out of teasing her about her dad, and she was well-liked enough to survive without them, but Puck missed hanging out with her, a little bit. Not too much.

Still, though, he was starting to notice how girls looked like, and he quite liked the blonde ones. But whenever Rachel was in the room his eyes would track to her. He discounted it as old habit, how he'd always be watching out for her after Ian had told him he was worried for his daughter. He liked Ian. He _still_ had a wicked sense of humor. Living with him for any period of time (Puck and Sarah'd slept over at their place a couple of times when he'd been little and his mom had gone out somewhere - probably to drink, he thought) had taught Puck how to avoid insects in his shoes, his bed, his socks, his hair (he'd finally gotten rid of that last one by shaving his head, and he liked having so little hair), so the other boys, trying to play pranks, couldn't even _hope_ to match Ian Berry's genius at pranking.

But...all of that just meant that he'd watch Rachel talking excitedly to Kurt out of a corner of his eye, even as he awkw-_smoothly _professed to the blonde in front of him that she should give him a kiss.

Even when she kissed him and put a hand on his shoulder he was still watching Rachel, but she didn't even turn to look at him, engrossed in whatever Kurt was saying.

A part of him itched for future revenge. He'd remember Kurt Hummel's name, and Kurt Hummel would _pay_. Maybe he'd make a deal with Dave Karofsky? The guy always had good ideas...

* * *

The fourth time Puck went Rachel-hunting was when they were seventeen. He'd just accepted a challenge, and he would succeed at it. Oh hell yes.

So what if she was dating his buddy Finn? Times changed, sometimes faster than others, and Finn was secretly sleeping with Santana anyway, idiot that he was. Didn't he know that Santana would easily break his little fool-boy heart? Bros before hoes, sure...but if Finn was so determined to break his own heart, let him make his own mistakes. He'd known Rachel for longer than he'd known Finn, and Finn'd been a real bastard to Rachel _and_ him, time after time, without trying. He should be getting his act together first, before he even tried to get Rachel to like him again.

That would take, what, two, three years? And in the meantime, Rachel was _still _getting bullied. Now, in high school, where all slates and debts were cleansed, which included the last remnants of her protection as 'one of the guys'.

Cashmere.

Really?

That was _horrible._

His eyes still followed her, but now that she'd taken to wearing Ian's cashmere sweaters (he did it to mock his partner - cue wicked humor - Rachel was _seriously _wearing it) Puck found his continual watch to be more than a little difficult. She looked so frumpy - so different from when they were younger and she was in a dress and did he mention that he had cursed himself twenty-one thousand times for not looking up when Rachel was in that tree when they were thirteen since she had been wearing a skirt?

No, no, no...she was heading in the direction of one of the jocks, the ones that Karofsky had set upon her. He didn't know what problems Karofsky had with Rachel, but he'd be damned if he let Rachel fall for it anymore. He'd have to let Karofsky know...one way, or another.

Problem was, of course, that his own power base was beginning to fade. He'd still be among the top, no issue, but Finn's supporters overlapped with his, and if he took Rachel away from her they'd leave him, and he'd be lower down, unable to protect Rachel except with his fists and words, which wouldn't be as fun.

Puck picked up his pace. He might not be able to prevent Rachel from hitting the jock, but he could curtail it slightly...

What? Where'd she go?

Puck rolled his eyes. Right. Rachel-hunting.

She'd become more savvy over the two years of high school. He would've found himself glad for this revelation, if it hadn't been for the fact that now he was trying to find her.

She became aware that he was chasing her, and started to move faster. In jeans...hell yeah, tight jeans...focus, Puckerman - she could run pretty damn fast.

He cornered her, finally, out by the dumpster.

"Are you _crazy_, Puck?" she hissed. "You-we-I can't do this. Not like this."

"You, we, I," Puck mocked her. "I've been watching over you since we were filckin' _five_, Rachel Berry, and your dad made me promise I always would. I keep my promises."

"Oh," she said, all scornful, one small finger pressing into his chest, "You mean like how you promised not to touch Santana again?"

He flinched. "That...wasn't...it wasn't planned, Rachel, trust me."

She rolled her eyes. "If that's all..."

"No," he said, and wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her flush to him. "No, it's not."

"What is it, then?"

Puck flung her over his shoulder, and jogged away from the dumpster. Jocks clapped him on the shoulder as he passed. He jogged into the school, and into one of the guys' bathrooms, locking them into a stall.

"Eww," she muttered, looking around.

"You're going to kiss me," he said, and pressed his back against the dirty door, until she was warm and semi-willing in his arms. "You're going to kiss me, until we _both _regret this."

"I already do," Rachel said, but kissed him anyway.

* * *

Puck made sure Dave personally stayed away from Rachel. He somewhat regrets that he didn't make Dave stay away from Kurt, too.

* * *

The fifth time Puck went Rachel-hunting was when they were both eighteen.

Frantic, Rachel's-Other-Dad had called him in the middle of the night, telling him that Rachel had stumbled home, blind drunk and whispering swear-words, but stared off into the distance. Nothing Ian or he could do would rouse her from her stupor.

Puck cursed, and let himself out of his window. The house was suspiciously quiet, but Sarah was at a sleepover and Puck no longer cared about his mother.

Ian looked altogether too relieved when he showed up.

"Puck! Thank goodness. Maybe you know the cause?"

"Can you-" Puck coughed. "Is it alright if you leave me alone in there? Or at least, stay out of hearing range? There might be things that Rachel wants to express but can't talk about to you."

"With all hopes Rachel will _always_ be able to talk to us," Rachel's other dad said. "But..."

"We will," Ian said, and drew his partner away.

"Rachel," Puck called, settling down beside her. Her mascara ran, her lipstick was smudged, and her hair...

Puck's eyes narrowed. Sex hair.

Filck...

"Rachel," Puck said. "Did Finn..."

Rachel continued to look past him, her eyes staring straight through her house's walls. Quite honestly, it gave him the creeps.

"Shit, Berry," Puck said. "Tell me!"

He shook her. Probably a bad move, but this was _Rachel_. He couldn't stand her being like this.

"He..." she said, quietly, "He...I was drinking, Puck, and when I woke up..." she shuddered and her eyes were dark with memory. "-I had to clean up, clean myself up, and then I found him, he was with Santana and he-they-did you know, Puck?"

So plaintive, broken, small. Nothing like the possessive, in-your-face girl he'd known for most of his life. Puck held out his arms.

"Did you know?" she said, but let him hug her. "I asked him, how long, and he wouldn't tell me. But Santana said, years. Did you know, Puck?"

"I..." Puck said, and that was enough.

Her gaze went blank again. "Of course you knew," she muttered. "Everyone but me knows. Everyone but me..."

Puck rubbed his forehead wearily. Clearly, he had to go hunting for Rachel's personality.

"...Why the hell are you so weak, Berry?"

"'Cause," she said, and pressed her head against his chest, smearing her makeup all over his shirt. "'Cause I am."

"No, I mean," Puck said, "Why the hell are you so weak _now_? There've been times in the past, if you'd been more girly, you wouldn't've been bullied so much, but one idiot who doesn't know better breaks you? You're so filckin' weak, Berry...Rachel..."

"I know I am. I can't feel anything. I'm not even disappointed, Puck."

Puck sighed. That wasn't really the best tactic. He supposed...he'd always been better with showing rather than telling her, anyway.

"Do you want to feel again?"

"Yes..."

Puck tilted her head up with his coarse, callused hands, and kissed her.

She tasted like lipstick and salt, the salt of tears.

She was crying.

* * *

The last time Rachel went Puck-hunting, Rachel was forty-one.

Winter had struck Chicago hard, and the snow piled up everywhere. Quinn supported her, one hand on her shoulder, as she talked to a memory, and scraped the snow away from where it had built up. "Hey, Puck," she said, quietly, the Star of David dangling from her neck. "I just wanted you to know, I won an Emmy, yesterday. I wish you were here, with me."

They stayed there while Quinn took her turn, telling Puck about what Beth had done, recently. Rachel didn't hear, staring off into the future, blank-eyed.

They made their way back down to her car, the security detail forming around the two of them to ward off the paparazzi. The car, its engines running smoothly, peeled away from the sidewalk.

In the rear-view mirror, Rachel watched the graveyard recede.

* * *

**Prev:** Puckurt **Now: **Puckleberry **Next:** Faberry


	4. Faberry

**Prev: **Puckleberry **Now:** Faberry **Next:** Finchel

This is horrible. I'm really bad at it. I'm going to sleep. I'll see you tomorrow, on Valentine's Day proper, beautiful - where you are, and where I am.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You**

_**

* * *

**_

_3. Love is about seeing imperfect people perfectly. And I...I know your flaws. But you're still perfect...because you're not an image, because you're real and you're dirty. Metaphorically and literally, at times.

* * *

_

'Anyone who was anyone or anything came to Starbuck's.' You heard that in show business a lot. Rachel had to wonder, as she spun the froth around, whether the people behind Casablanca had ever been able to predict the future. Or, maybe, it'd been just as true in their time? Show people _lived_ on coffee. Gallons of it, well-made or deliberately bad-tasting, would go into shows on one end, and then amazing productions would come out the other side.

She also had to wonder, how many of those amazing people on the award-winning stages knew how to make a proper cup of coffee. Probably quite a lot.

But she wasn't at a Starbucks. Too many positions there were filled with people much more experienced than she - instead, she came to work at a little cafe south by west of the main thoroughfare, known more for its pastries than its coffee.

Of course, now that _Rachel _had gotten here...

If there was one thing her childhood and adolescent boasting had never gotten wrong, it was her pancake making skills. But she'd been wrong about so much else. It made her cringe, to think of some of the things she's claimed and done - like sabotaging far better talents than hers. Or, talking nineteen times to a dozen; all of that wasn't necessary, and in fact would hurt her chances. Over the piles of rejections that had come from her blib-blabbering through an interview, Rachel had learned how to 'not be annoying', as some of her high school friends would have put it.

Rachel sighed, resting her elbow on the kitchentop.

"Rachel!" Amelia called from outside. "Two pancakes, large! To go," she added.

"Alright!" she called back, cheerfully, and poured the batter into the pan.

When she was done, Rachel wrapped the two pancakes up in a small brown paper bag, and placed it on the counter. Amelia was hastily pouring coffee into two mugs for two regulars (big-black woman and little-gay-boy, as Rachel remembered them), and so Rachel mustered up a smile and passed the pancakes to the customer.

The blonde woman blinked at her. "You look familiar," she said.

"I do?" Rachel said.

"Yes...were you in a performance of Windows Darkly, by any chance?"

"Yes..." Rachel said, remembering the show that brought her to Chicago, then left her high and dry without any other offers. "I was. Berkeley. I mean, I played Berkeley."

The woman smiled. "I _thought _you were! You see, I went back to Windows Darkly four times in its run, and I found it so different every single time. It was lovely."

"Thanks," Rachel said. "I'm Rachel, by the way. Rachel Berry."

"Quinn," the blonde said. "Quinn Fabray. I guess you're waiting around for the results of your other auditions to come through?"

"Yes," Rachel said.

"Sounds like everyone else in this city," Quinn laughed, then looked down at her steaming pancakes. "These look good. Per'aps I'll come back tomorrow."

"Alright," Rachel said. "Have a nice day."

"Excuse me," their regular interrupted. "Can I get a refill on my coffee? Along with a slice of the chocolate cake?"

"Oh, of course," Rachel said, smiling at her. It wasn't even fake, or disappointed in her lot of life, for once.

* * *

Over the next few months, Quinn's visits became more frequent. It got to the point where Amelia would recognise her coming in the door and make sure Rachel was free so that they could talk for a bit.

"Hey, Rachel," Quinn said, as Rachel brought her her regular order. "Do you want to hang out sometime, after you get off-shift?"

"Sure," Rachel said. "You know what time I get off."

"I'll see you again at five, then," Quinn said, and walked away.

* * *

It was good to have friends again, in Chicago, who didn't know of her somewhat checkered past. Quinn was a godsend - helping her find auditions, helping her prepare, helping her cope when the inevitable rejection came. Rachel did her best to be there for Quinn when her own audition-hunting failed, and grew fonder of Quinn, day by day.

"You know," Quinn slurred to her one night while they were at a bar, "I was pregnant at one time."

"What?" Rachel said, not too drunk to ignore it.

"I had a kid...I gave her up for adoption."

"Oh," Rachel said, and looked down. "I..."

Quinn blinked at her, frozen in lifting up her bottle. "C'mon," she said, "I know you well enough that you're hiding somethin'. Out wif it."

"You're slur-slurring," Rachel said. She hiccupped.

"And you're stuuuuttering," Quinn said. "We're bofe drunk. Keep talkin'."

"I was adopted," Rachel said, looking down. "I really was. I," she took a deep breath, then regretted it, as the bitter tang of secondhand smoke semi-suffocated her, "I always wanted to know who my biological parents were."

"Oh," Quinn said. "Well, I don't remember who the father was, but I visit Beth every so often. She thinks I'm an 'aunt', a friend of her mom's." She took another draught of her beer. "Mm, I'm numb," she muttered under her breath.

"How old izzz Beth?" Rachel said.

"Sheee's about six now."

"Six!" Rachel said, rather more loudly than she'd intended to. "And you're, whaaat, twenny-two?"

"Yeah," Quinn said, and swayed, "I'm twenny-two."

"I'm twenny-two too!" Rachel said, and giggled.

Quinn hiccupped. "Yay!"

"We were talkin' about something, right?" Hiccup.

"Ah, it doesn't matter anymore." Hiccup. Hiccup.

"We should go home."

"Your place please."

"Why can' we go to yours?"

"My roommate's a, a, a, _dick_," Rachel said. "He'd take advan...advante..._advantage_ of you."

"What about you?"

"He thinks I'm 'one of the guys'."

"He's an idiot," Quinn said softly.

Rachel smiled, warm all over.

"You're bright red," Quinn pointed out, and hiccupped. "My friend Tina used to be like that when she was drunk all the time."

"She was drunk all the time?"

"Yesh...no...yesh...I dunno, what was I saying?"

"You were making some bet?"

"That was yesterday."

"I din't hear all of it."

"Uhhmmm...If you get a part in one of the Broadway shows, I'm gonna kiss you."

"I'm supposed t' be," Hiccup, "Okay wi' that?"

"You were noddin' and smilin'. Weren't you?"

"I dunno."

"...How do we get to your house?"

* * *

"Hey, Rach," Quinn said, her gloves tucked into her pockets in the chill winter air, walking through the park. "You know, you've been to my house so often and for so long that half your stuff is over at my place. Do you want to move in? We could share half the rent."

Rachel sneezed, then shrugged. "Okay."

* * *

Months later:

"Rachel! Did you get the part?"

"Did you get the _milk?"_

"Of _course_ I did. I want your pancakes for tomorrow morning. I wouldn't forget something _that _important."

"..._Really._"

"That one time with the toilet paper notwithstanding. And honestly,"

"-You used it to t.p. my ex-flatmate's car. Very mature of you, yada yada yada."

"Come on, Rachel, he had it coming."

Rachel smirked. "That's true."

"Tell me. Did you get the Broadway part? Do I get to kiss you now?"

...

"You taste like pancakes."

"Expected. I was trying out a competitor's."

"No one could beat your pancake-making skills, Rachel Berry."

"You've tasted my failures, too."

"And they were yummy."

"Honestly, Quinn..."

* * *

**Prev: **Puckleberry **Now:** Faberry **Next:** Finchel


	5. Finchel

**Prev:** Faberry **Now:** Finchel **Next:** Kinn

Happy Valentine's Day, love. I hope you had a great day.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You

* * *

**

_11. I'm always scared that no matter how much I love you, it will not be enough. You'll find someone better, who loves you less, but who you love more, and the equilibrium will strike, and I...I just hope that when that day comes I'll already have someone else, selfish as that is. But at the same time, I hope that day never comes. Because you have no idea how much you mean to me.

* * *

_

Finn has always measured himself to other people. He knows that he does so unconsciously, because his father went away frequently when he was young, so he turned to other people to base his personality off of. When he lets himself think about it (not often) it's a point of shame for him, shame so scalding, so embarrassing, his breaths come quick and high in his throat, and he shakes and forces his mind away again.

From Puck, he takes devil-may-care'ness; Puck doesn't care what other people think of him, so that lets him do what he does. Finn, though... as much as he may act like Puck, deep down, he _does _care what other people think about him. So he walks around and does things, always conscious of the public eye, judging him, watching him, and to be fair to him, they are. They just aren't _always_ on him, gossiping about him - they have other, better things, to be doing. Gossiping about the people on top, for example. Without his father's moderating influence, Finn also takes a dislike of controlling authority, which clashes painfully with his need to be liked.

From Dave Karofsky, he takes manipulation. Before, all the ways he bullied those under him in status were a bit like Puck's; very simple, physical things. When Finn sees the way people rallied to Karofsky, he copies some of those manipulations. The difference is, Finn is slightly more likeable as a person, with more-than-slight charisma; some supporters come away from Dave, who doesn't try to keep them. From Dave, he also takes an unconscious homophobia. He doesn't really care that Kurt Hummel is a 'freak', but that's popular consensus, and Dave goes on and on and on about it in the locker room, and over a long enough time he gets a bit of it deeply inserted into his 'personality'.

Maybe some of the reason he's always scared that someone is watching him, he thinks to himself one night before sleep comes, is because he's watching others out of the corner of his eye.

From Matt Rutherford, he takes a sense of fun in everything he does. What use is there in life if you can't enjoy it? Matt's said so, more than once - do things because you want to, not because you have to. Finn's tried. _Filck_, how much he's tried...

From Mike Chang, Finn takes social and physical grace. From Kurt Hummel, who he watches and envies for his manner with girls, he takes seriousness; a habit of looking into girls' eyes and talking to them as if they were _just like guys. _That was difficult, before - he'd look down and stutter and walk shyly away. Except if it was Rachel. But then, she's one of the guys too, right?

Out on the fields at dawn, on the track, Finn runs and runs. He knows from all the stories passed around in the middle school rooms that the star of a high school is the quarterback. And he wants to be popular. So he runs, and runs.

By the time he enters high school, he's taken so many pieces of other people that there are days he feels he's a walking, talking, plasticine doll, full of lumps and shapes that aren't too much like anyone, including himself. He doesn't think for himself, if he doesn't have to. It's too easy just to slip into preconceived patterns of behavior - jocular around Puck, quiet around the other jocks but ready to defend himself if they make power plays, bullying to the nerds. Finn knows that he could do better, but he doesn't know how to. There's no one he really respects that tells him to do better.

On nights when he's locked into himself, when he can _be _himself bereft of anyone else's personality, he stares up at the ceiling and wants to be himself, but he doesn't know _how _and anyway, there's no one to be himself for. He thinks of Rachel, who he'll always be fond of. She's one of the guys; talkative, sure...a girl, sure, but someone he personally likes. Dave's a 'friend', too, like her, but he can be something of a bastard. She's not like that. Most people think Rachel is annoying, but she's...constant. Soothing in her constancy. But she's a pariah, so when he's in his patterns, Finn stays away. He watches her, though, nothing too creepy.

He's also terribly ashamed of himself, when he watches Kurt. Deep inside, there's a very, very deep well there that respects Kurt like he respects no one else. He flinches as he thinks about Kurt, shying away from any feelings of like. He still cares about what everyone else would think, right, if he started buddying up to Kurt. They'd call him gay, too, and he'd never make quarterback.

Finn keeps his head down.

One day when he's playing his guitar outside on the steps, Artie shows up. And does something utterly insane. Sure, he's a nerd, but there's no one else around. Finn doesn't have to be bullying. Instead, he asks for Artie's help.

Artie gives it.

From Artie, he learns independence. It shakes him a little bit; like Rachel, he respects Artie as one of the guys, before the accident happened. And then...when he lets himself think about it, it's another point of shame. So many things he could've done, and none of them occurred.

That night he helps his mom with the dishes. She gives him a shocked look, and he glows from the inside. It's warm.

Quinn asks him out.

From Quinn, he learns how to mask. She's always shy and delicate with him, but when he sees her without her seeing him, she's ruthless, power-mad, power-hungry. But for the sake of protection and popularity, he stays with her, he treats her well, like a gentleman when he thinks about it (he took that from Artie). Long enough spent like that, and he's always a gentleman. He couldn't be rough with her if he tried, and what would be the point, if he was rough?

He watches Rachel get slushied in the halls, though, when Quinn isn't around, and hurts every time someone does. If they hadn't been so far apart, he would have protected her. (He takes loyalty from Mr. Tanaka's team drills) Even if everyone else seems to have deserted her, she's still one of the guys. Except that...she's not. She's...Rachel.

He has new material to be ashamed of, before sleep comes.

He thinks...in some other time, in some other place, he would have fallen in love with her, first thing, and treated her like a gentleman, like she deserves. But this isn't that other place; this is McKinley High School, and he's learned so many wrong things, like how to armor himself so that nothing real slips through his facade. Like, how to lie.

Then he joins the glee club.

* * *

Rachel notices him and he slips into his old pattern, treating her as one of the guys. When he thinks no one's watching (it's difficult to think about, because he's focusing so much on Rachel) he flirts with her, overt and covert, lines he'd never have thought of with Quinn coming easily to his lips and wisping through the air, carefree. And she knows all the correct phrases, demure and dominant by turns, and it's easy not to think with her, but to be himself. Whatever 'himself' is.

He knows his popularity is taking a huge drop by this and that (joining the Glee club, 'cheating' on his girlfriend with Rachel even though he's really not - and she's done worse before), but he can't bring himself to care. Outwards, to the school, he presents himself as a blank-faced, stupid, automaton, in his mind thinking up the next things he wants to say to Rachel, how she'll respond. He wants to - every time he makes her smile and close her eyes, his body shivers all over, a jolt of heat. Every time she retorts, a sharp reply with more words than strictly necessary, he aches. He doesn't kiss her, although he wants to. She's one of the guys after all, and he shies away from associating...like that...with guys. Somewhere he knows this is the most stupid decision he's ever made, but he'd rather keep going as it is, being himself around Rachel.

Mr. Schue teaches him that it's okay to _think _for himself. And it's okay to be bits and pieces of other people, as long as he can look himself in the mirror tomorrow and like what he sees there.

He makes a pact, when he sings "Hello", to be someone he won't be ashamed of, every day. He sees Rachel watch him sing it, and he's soaring now, the smile coming unbidden to his face. If Rachel is proud of him, then he's proud of himself.

He just has to figure out who 'himself' is.

By the time they're seventeen, Finn knows a little better. He plucks up his courage and asks Rachel on another date. She agrees, smiling at him, and she still causes that jolt in him. Plucking up his courage further, he wraps her hand around his and treats her like he wanted to treat Quinn, like being the gentleman she deserves.

He knows Puck watches over Rachel. He wants to tell Puck, it's okay, I'm here now, I'm really here, I'm not a copycat anymore, but he never does. It's not how Puck and he work, and frankly, he likes Puck enough that he's not going to change that.

He has a dad now. Burt...leads him to thinking about Kurt. _That_ is a new point of shame. After their parents' marriage to each other, his neglect of Kurt...

He had a second chance, to protect Kurt, to legitimately do so, and he didn't. He knows now that he could blame his behavior all he wants, but now that he's more himself the only person he can blame is himself, and he hurts. He promises Kurt, at their parents' wedding, that he'll be a better brother, and he is. He tries.

His relationship with Rachel is still the same undercurrents, flirting and talking and listening, and he likes it. It's constant, in these miserable days, and...he doesn't know how else to express that she's good for him, that she makes him a better person.

He knows how much Rachel cares for him, how much she shows, and he has to wonder whether she cares about him as much as he cares about her. And that's a lot. A lot. Beyond words.

* * *

"Hey," Rachel says, looking up at him. He's troubled, but that goes away when he sees her.

He smiles and tugs her to him, loving how she knows he's thinking about something, but she can tell when he's thinking about her. He knows he gets a little crease in between his eyebrows, and he takes deeper breaths than usual. He can tell, because whenever he does that, she wraps her arms tight around him and nestles under his chin rather than settling on his shoulder. Her hair is smooth, and trying not to be creepy, he tucks a curl behind her ear and lets his hand fall.

His heartbeat goes, strong and steady, and he knows that Rachel knows that he loves her, and that he only wants to make her smile.

Rachel has always chosen to give her love to people who matter, and no one else, and Finn hopes, he hopes so much, that he can share that with her; share that, as a part of the Finn Hudson he wants to be.

* * *

I'm not writing Rachel because I don't have time to give her character the love she needs, and anyway...you can fill in the blanks, m'love; you're a lot like her. How you'd react is how she'd react, anyway.

**Prev: **Faberry **Now:** Finchel **Next:** Kinn


	6. Kinn

**Prev:** Finchel **Now: **Kinn **Next:** Kurttany

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love Y'**, **Such-Like**

* * *

_2. You complete me like no one else can. You're loud, I'm quiet. Well, except when you're quiet and I'm loud. You stand out by existing and you have to work to blend in. I blend in by existing and have to work to stand out. But you are inherently happy where I'm inherently sad, and whether or not that's a mask like mine is, you make me happier than I would be without you.

* * *

_

"Hey! Hey! Hey! Over here! Lookit me! Lookit me!"

"Gimme a l'il bit more'f yer food?"

"Oh hey, Finn, y' going back? Kurt just got back."

Finn looked up from his plodding. "He has? The usual place?"

The urchin nodded.

"He sed he'll be waitin' for you, wi' loot. He gave me a little bit. Candlestick. I knows where to pawn it off, see," the dirty, small girl said the last in a whisper.

Finn patted her on the head. "Off with you, then."

"I hav'na forgotten the food y' gave me yet, Finn."

Finn passed through the layers of urchins watching the doorway and went into the thieves' house.

"Yo, Kurt!" Finn yelled. "What was the 'grift' like?"

"You sound so fake," Kurt said, out of the cleaner part of the house, changing out of his better-made clothes. "Stop using thieves' slang, you poser."

"I am _not _a poser, Kurt."

"You have a last name, don't you?"

"Well, yeah," Finn admitted. "Anyway, what did you get?"

Kurt flashed a grin. "The Tanakas haven't noticed that their second set of silverware's gone missin'. _Missing_."

"Nice!" Finn said. "Hey, you want to run a con, just the two of us?"

"Like when we started?" Kurt said, hanging the clothes up on a hook. Finn tried not to look at Kurt's bare chest. It was...uncomfortable, kinda awkward. Like, he was okay with looking at the other urchins all nekkid and stuff, cos he was one of them before and despite what Kurt said he was okay at slippin' back into the thieves' slang, but lookin' at Kurt, it med his insides feel all funny-like, like he et bad food and his stomach turned over.

Like he _ate_ bad food and his stomach turned over. He was one of them richies now, he had to talk like 'em. Like _them._

Even if he was gonna - going to - run a grift with Kurt, the way they used to. They were both richies, kinda, now.

"Where?" Kurt said, leaning into him as they headed toward the thieves' store.

"Market, second level?" Finn asked.

Kurt nodded, thinking. "Yeh, we hav'na gone back there since we were partners under Will and Terri, eh?"

"Yeh," Finn said, his accent and manner morphing to match Kurt's.

"Hep me with the ties? My fingers are all stiff-like, heppin' my papa in the shops an' smithery." Kurt said, pulling one of the light sleeveless vests around his shoulders. Finn watched, his eyes fond, watching the partner he only rarely saw nowadays. Making sure the vest stayed down with his palms, Finn tied the knots between the sides, and Kurt leaned back into him, sighing.

"Yeh know, I miss goin' on grifts with ya, Finn," Kurt said.

"Yeh, me too."

* * *

The midafternoon sun beat harshly on the cobblestones. Even so late in the day, the sky was still blue, blue without a hint of cloud, and the stones of the buildings in their city shined golden-bright. Folks from miles an' miles around called their homeplace the 'City Of Gold', an' Finn agreed. It was real pretty, like that.

The stones were hot under his an' Kurt's feet, but even though tourists found it difficult to walk on in shoes, Kurt an' Finn'd been walkin' the city barefoot for years an' years, and it was easy to re-adjust, even when they were bein' richies an' wearing shoes for weeks on end.

Merchants laid their carpets everywhere, the colors vibrant and bright in the sun. Vendors hawked wares, and Finn drew in a deep, deep breath, inhaling the mixed smell of fish and fruit, wine and freshly-baked pita, herbs and spices and sandalwood and myrrh. Incense. Mutton, all smoking on the great big bonfire at Market, Central. Perfumed water. Dung. Camels. People, who didn't bathe so often.

Kurt was holdin' his nose.

"Kurt?" Finn asked.

"I din't realide how mud livid' ad Papa Burt's smiddery bade by node more sensitibe."

"What?"

Kurt took a deep breath through his mouth and let go of his nose.

"I didn't realise how much livin' at Papa Burt's smithery made my nose more sensitive!"

He clamped his nose again, and took another breath.

"Oh," Finn said. He shrugged. "S'okay, I understand."

"Nuttin' aboud udderstaddin', it judd thtinkth."

"Hey..."

They passed a vendor selling perfumed cloths. Finn kept Kurt near him with a hand on his shoulder, and paid the vendor for one. He gave the vendor way too much money, and apologised profusely, taking far too much 'change' back.

The vendor was distracted by the next customer, and didn't realise that Finn had paid him in so few coins that the cloth was effectively given away.

Finn and Kurt melded into the crowd.

Kurt tied the perfumed cloth over his nose, and breathed easier.

"It's easier to breathe," Kurt said. "Thanks."

"So..." Finn said. "You got any ideas for the grift?"

"You wanna run the Big Dumb Mute one?"

Finn sighed. "I ain't got any _better _ideas..."

* * *

"Step right up!" a boy called, a perfumed rag wrapped around his right arm. "Step right up, one and all, to the ridiculous, fantastic, fabulous, majestic, the big, dumb mute, Knee N. Derthal! You can poke at him, arm-wrestle, test his wits, his skill, his mettle, face him in the ring, or outside, you can read to him, or decide, what he should do next, for a small price, of two copper and silver coins. You can watch him do magic with your money, and make it four."

A small crowd had already gathered around the two of them, the big dumb mute arm-wrestling a big, buff fish merchant. Small piles of copper and silver coins vanished into the boy's pockets, oddly, considering he was only wearing a small silver vest and short pants. When he moved, he didn't even jingle.

"Who dares, who dares, to put a bell on Knee? We got bells on him, just to show that someone brave done it! Are _you_ brave enough? Step right up, step right up! Ten silver coins to the winner!"

* * *

"Here's your change, kind sir, you gave me a little too many..."

"Mnnaaaarrrgh!"

Kurt pocketed the change as soon as his customer looked over.

"Thas' a big dumb mute you gots there," one of the older merchants said, baring his teeth in a crooked gold grin, his teeth blackened and yellow. "Care t' sell him, boyo?"

"Ah, nah," Kurt said. "He's m'brother, I can' sell 'im. Me daddy would hate me from up high, y'see."

"Goo' enuf," the man said. "He's makin' y' piles o' money tho, ain't he?"

"Yeh, that t'."

The man laughed. "Well, I oughtta be off. M' business won't keep, y'see?"

"Yeh, a'right, a'right. Y' come back soon?"

"I'll bring somethin' special," the man winked, and walked off, hobbling on his crutches. One of his legs had been badly brutalised in some streetfight, a long time ago.

Kurt narrowed his eyes. Somethin' about that man was familiar. He darted over to buy somethin' food-like from a vendor, and then headed to Finn.

"Hey," he murmured into Finn's ear, holding the food close to Finn's lips, "I think one of the Ol' Thieves was jest here."

Finn made sure to drool out of his mouth before biting into the pita. His shoulders tensed, and he dropped his head, squirming on the spot.

"'Kay," Kurt said, louder. "I'll be around."

Finn dodged to the side suddenly, as an enterprising richie kid ran at him at full speed, holding a bell. Using that sudden momentum, he won his arm-wrestle with a big Nubian merchant, the man wincing and rubbing his hand afterward. He paid, wearing a wide white grin, though, acknowledging the loss.

Kurt rolled out of the way.

* * *

Sunset.

"We're closin'! We're closin'!" Kurt yelled, and lifted Finn to his feet. Drooling and mumbling, Finn ambled back with Kurt, the bells on him jingling and jangling.

The merchants packed up, moving to their carts or bearing their stock themselves, and moved away from Market, Second, with unusual speed.

Kurt watched it all with narrowed eyes.

"Looks like the Old Thief got touchy," Kurt muttered.

Finn narrowed his eyes. "Why does he care? Market, Second's neutral turf."

"Mebbe he's trainin' a gang or summat."

"Still," Finn said. "He should know Code."

"Mm..."

"You okay to fight? I'm ready for a bout."

"I dunno...I guess I been spoiled, eh?"

"Yeh."

"Jet!" Kurt called.

A little urchin head popped up out of nowhere. "Whassup, boss? Ooh," he winced, "Ow. It's hot."

"Warn Rach and Puck we'll be late home, 'kay? An'...here, take summa this."

From seemingly nowhere Kurt produced a belt lined with pouches of money, all jingling and jangling. "Go bank this, yeh?"

"Sure thing, boss!" Jet stared down at all the money. "Oh, wow..."

"Go on with ye," Kurt said. "If'n you good enough, an' we get back wi' the rest of the bake, we'll buy y' some xocolatl to share wi' your richie gir', good 'nough?"

"Amelie'll love it, yeh," Jet said, grinnin'. "She loves tha' xocolatl."

"Don't y' get into any fights on the way back, Jet," Finn warned. "I _know _y'."

"Y' gir's sed you were dangerous reckless," Kurt added.

"Relax! I don't get into meanin'less fights, y' know tha'. Amelie knows it, t'."

"Yeh, true," Kurt said. "Off wi' y', now."

Jet took off, his black hair quickly out of sight.

"Y' ready, Finn?"

"Yeh. I'm spoilin' fer a good fight. Y' gonna talk first?"

"Yeh."

Finn and Kurt turned around at the pattering of feet. Three boys, all scowlin', in dirty smocks.

"Y' there!" the leader of the trio screamed. "Y're on our turf! We're Rats! Market's our turf now!"

"Market's neutral turf," Kurt shot back. "Y' can't up an' claim it like that."

"We'll run anyone off who says otherwise!"

"Oh yeh?" Kurt yelled. "We're Nu Directions, we been around since th' Ol' Thieves split up! How ol' are _y'_?"

"Garrin's one o' the Ol' Thieves, an' he's _sponsorin' _us, y' nincompoop!"

"Then he shudda _sponsored _y' better!"

"...If y' know what he mean," Finn added.

"_WHAT DID Y' SAY?"_

Kurt shoved Finn hard.

"_Them's fightin' words! _Boys, get'im!"

The other two boys rushed Finn and Kurt. With the two of them standing still, the Rats had no trouble holding the two of them down.

"Who's laughin' now, eh?" the leader yelled. "You Directionals are weak!"

"But they got girls, boss..."

"Eh?"

"An' pretty boys," the one holding Kurt said.

Kurt looked over at Finn before the boy holding him yanked his head back.

"Whatcha say, boss, we ransom these kids for some of them girls?"

"Hmm...I seen a bunch of em around sayin' they're Directions. Garrin pointed them outta me, they're pretty good lookin'. And these two are the bosses, so they'll come over glad enough..."

Kurt looked shocked.

"Oh yeh," the leader said, walkin' forward. "Garrin sed, if'n you get the chance, get the pretty boy and th' big dumb one down. Then we tek the gir's." He spat on the ground. "Thet was plain easy. Garrin din't need t' worry. Bofe of y' are weak, an' we're strong, hell yeh."

Kurt sighed. "Garrin's th' weak one, weak in th' head, if'n he chose you lot."

"_What?"_

"I've herd y' out now, an' you ain't worth listenin' t'."

"_WHAT?_" the leader said, almost jumping up and down in irritation. "I got y'! I got y'! I'm holdin' y' ransom!"

"An' we're not gonna pay it," Kurt said, rolling his eyes. "Finn?"

"Thought y'd n'ver ask," Finn said, and forced his arms out. The boy holding him went tumbling across the sandy cobblestones. The boy holding Kurt gaped, and Kurt drove a sharp elbow into his stomach, then rolled away.

Finn walked, slow and deliberate, to the leader. The leader started backing away, but much too late.

Finn's arm shot out, and he grasped the leader by the collar of his smock. "Yer gonna go back to Garrin," Finn hissed, "An' y' gonna tell him that Nu Directions does no' like what he's sayin' about them."

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" the leader mocked.

"Yer gonna go back like this."

Finn drew back his fist, and smashed the leader full in the face, letting go of him at the instant before hitting him.

The leader spun away from him and collapsed on the ground, bleeding from a broken nose.

"Rats!" the boy screamed, hitting the ground, "Ge' him!"

"Oh, yer _kiddin'," _Finn groaned, as a gang of boys flooded out from the market.

Kurt sighed. "Y' wanted a bout, din't ye?"

* * *

Finn carried his partner in his arms, cradling him gently as he plodded back to their hideout. He'd fought dem fierce agin those boys, movin' swift an' easy. Finn'd found it easy like always. They'd kick him an' he'd feel nuthin', he'd hit 'em an' they'd go down cryin' for their mommies.

"Was a good day," Kurt murmured into his chest, and Finn smiled.

"Yeh."

"...I got y' xocolatl today," Kurt murmured. "Burt ga' me th' money."

"Yeh?" Finn asked. "Well...I got y' xocolatl, t'."

"Happy anniversary, Finn. Y'know...the richies...today's..."

"Yeh, well...guess we got lucky findin' each other, eh."

The lights of the hideout were on, but dim, and Kurt let one arm loose from around Finn's neck to open their door.

"But it's a good kinda lucky."

"Yeh."

"'M glad y' were m' partner."

"Me t'."

* * *

**Prev: **Finchel **Now:** Kinn **Next:** Kurttany


	7. Kurttany

**Prev: **Kinn **Now:** Kurttany **Next:** Brittana

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You**

**

* * *

**_14. You know I'm superstitious. One of my superstitions is that a measure of how good the relationship will be is how cute the meeting story is, the proper one, the one where you both saw each other for the first time._

_We had a damn cute meeting story._

_At least, I think so._

* * *

**McKinley Middle School**

"Kurt! Kurt! Hey," Rachel Berry said, catching up to him. Rachel had taken to following him around, which was somewhat irritating, but he tolerated her because she was very much like him in terms of proper speaking, unlike those, those _boors _she used to have for friends, and she made the most godly pancakes known to Mankind.

"Rachel," he acknowledged, tilting his nose at her. "How goes it?"

"I'm doing very well in Mathematics now," she said, "Thanks for the personal tutoring."

"Oh, you're very welcome," Kurt said. "You know that there are a few girls that would _kill_ for the chance to be personally tutored by me, right?"

"Oh, yes," Rachel said. "I appreciate what you did for me. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

Kurt raised his nose. "Not at the moment."

"Maybe I'll make you some pancakes?"

Kurt dropped his pose faster than he could say 'Marion Cotillard', which was pretty damn fast. "Yes! Yes, you could do that! Ahem, I mean, certainly."

"Okay," Rachel said. "Umm...see you around, I guess? I've got to get to English."

"Bye," he said, waving at her until she turned the corner.

Useful, perhaps, but not inherently likeable. Kurt walked to his next class, slowly, calmly, regally.

Thud.

Kurt gasped and sat up, the fall having driven the air out of his lungs. What department store had run him over, and who put it there?

He opened his eyes (when had they shut?)

A girl blinked at him, brushing her blonde hair out of her eyes.

"Hello," Kurt said, warily. She didn't look familiar. A new power in the school? Or someone destined to fade into the crowd?

"I'm Brittany," the girl said, shyly. "Hi?"

"I'm Kurt," Kurt said, and held out his hand, rising to his feet. "Welcome to McKinley Middle School."

"Hi, Kurt," the girl said. "I was heading to the field. It's a saint's day today, you know, and I wanted to head outside to say hi to the bees."

Kurt blinked. "Today's a saint's day?"

"Everyday's a saint's day," the short blonde girl said, then turned around. "It's good to meet you."

"Wait, wait!" Kurt said, catching up to her. "What do you mean, today's a saint's day?"

"It's St. Valentine's Day today, isn't it?"

Kurt peered around the halls, bereft of what would be their usual Valentine's regalia.

"...No. That's...Monday."

"Oh," the girl said. "Then I guess I should've gone to Science." She frowned. "But I don't know where that is."

"I've got Science too," Kurt said. "C'mon, I'll take you."

* * *

**Las Vegas High School**

"Today's a same day, the same things are for today, are you the same? Today's a same day..."

"Brittany!" her mum yelled, "Get to the bus!"

Brittany walked out of her house, still humming that tune. The jazz band had come up with it, and RT, her boyfriend, had sung it to her, just a little ditty that stuck in her head. Okay, so there'd been a little more to it, but that's all she remembered.

It was cute. She remembered it, a lot.

She cocked her head to one side, and the bus pulled up in front of her.

"Today's the same day, the same things are for today, are you the same? Today's the same day..."

A boy, sitting on the bus, looked up at the song. "Hi," he said shyly. "That's the jazz band song, right? The one RT wrote?"

"Huh?" Brittany said, looking up.

"Hey, sit down over here," the boy said, patting the seat.

"I dunno..."

The bus lurched, bouncing over a run of rocks. Brittany sat down hurriedly.

"I'm Kurt," the boy smiled. "I'm in choir really, but I know RT really well, since he's in choir too."

"Oh, right," Brittany said. She thought about it. "I've never heard of you though."

Kurt's face fell. "Oh, that's okay. It's probably safer if he doesn't."

"I like you."

"Huh?"

Brittany bit her lip. "You seem really nice. So I like you."

"Oh. You're...Brittany? RT's girlfriend? The cheerleader one?"

"Yeah," Brittany said, happily. "I'm a cheerleader!"

"It suits you," Kurt said sincerely.

"Thanks."

"So, uh," Kurt said, "I guess you got the song stuck in your head?"

"Today's the same day," Brittany sang.

"The same day as yesterday," Kurt sang to her, and rummaged around in his bag.

"The same things are for today-"

"Cause we are all the same-"

* * *

"You're _firing _a _girl_ out of the _cannon_? How'd you even get Mr. Figgins to approve that?"

"She's hysterical, porcelain. You'll have to calm her down."

"You're insane, Coach Sylvester. No offense."

"I'm more sane than the rest of the world, lady face. It will be _spectacular."_

Kurt gave her one wide-eyed look, and fled.

"Hi, I'm Kurt," Kurt said, clambering up next to her on the tree branch. He laid a hand on her knee. "You're Brittany, right?"

* * *

**Prev: **Kinn **Now:** Kurttany **Next:** Brittana


	8. Brittana

**Prev:** Kurttany **Now:** Brittana **Next:** Sue/Sue

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You

* * *

**

_12. Live for the present, right? That's what you taught me. Take as much out of the now, as much as you can...and, I guess, love for the present too._

* * *

_Clang!_

The jailer sneered as he pulled his key out of the lock.

"Hey, feisty," he sneered, his drooling, disgusting face pressed to the space between the bars, "We got a new plaything for you."

Santana turned around and fixed him with a devastating glare.

The jailer shrank back before mustering up his spite again. "Heh heh heh. Bring 'er in, boys!"

The 'boys', joking and laughing and spitting, manhandled a girl into Santana's little cell. Her blonde hair was dank with dirt, and she mumbled things that didn't make sense.

"You-" Santana locked gazes with the jailer, who smirked.

"Yeah, we used her till we broke her spirit. It was fun, too." He spat on the ground. "Now all she says is crazy things. You two oughtta get along _real _well."

"Filck you too," Santana hissed.

"That an offer? Cain't accept, though," the jailer said, grinning wider, a stream of drool leaking out the side of his mouth. "Ain't my turn 'til the end of the month."

Santana growled at him, then picked the blonde up and laid her gently on the lower bunk. It hadn't been empty until two days ago, when her previous roommate Quinn had found she was pregnant.

She'd been dead by dawn, flogged over and over by the jailers to 'get rid of the baby'.

Filckers. Filck 'em all.

* * *

The cell had gone dark and light and dark and light four more times before Santana found out her new roommate's name was 'Brittany'.

She'd lost count of how many dark and light times it had been before Brittany could sing to her and not at the walls.

"Brittany, Brittany, docks and whey, candlelight flicker, candlelight stay," Brittany whispered, her eyes gazing past Santana, but at least facing her by now. Santana held Brittany's hand in both of hers.

Some days she wished she were just as bonkers as Brittany, so she'd get out of this nightmare. But if she went that far, who'd make sure that Brittany ate? Who'd make sure she drank enough of the foul water, enough to keep her alive?

"Today's a saint day, saints are for today, are you a saint? Today's a saint day..."

"Today's a saint day..." Santana echoed, quietly. She knew that little sing-song song as well as her own name now, everyone on their cell block row did. Brittany sang it a little louder than she did everything else, and it freaked the guards out to no end. So all the ladies sang it, when it came to their time with the 'boys', and the jailers would go a little easier on them. Mebbe it meant something, to the outside, Santana didn't know or care. Her father and mother were dead now, right, thanks to the new 'liberator' who took over from Sue Sylvester, and they were hostages for a reason.

She didn't want to know how the Fabrays would take the death of their daughter and grandkid.

"Today's a saint day, saints are for today, are you a saint? Today's a saint day..."

* * *

It was hard, in that there prison, real hard not to give in to despair. Santana'd managed it time and time before waitin' for the jailers to take their turn wi' her, then tryin' to send as many of them to the infirmary as possible. Course, now they started threatenin' Brittany, she had ta stop, but then she was livin' for Brittany and tryin' her hardest not to break down. But every so off'n Brittany'd do somethin' that keep Santana smilin' just a little for days. Like the first time she held Santana's hand on her own, or the first time she ate on her own, jist a little bit, first time she smiled at Santana, first time she called her 'San' an' started talkin' to her about her life but in dribs and drabs and rhymes and song.

Santana knew after a while that Brittany was an only chile. She told Brittany, too, of her bein' one of tons of kids and cousins, brothers and sisters. Santana kept holdin' conversations with Brittany even though midway through Brittany's eyes would go unfocused and she'd sing that little ditty agin, the one about the saints. Brittany'd seem happier when Santana sung it with her, so Santana did it until she could sing it in her dreams and sometimes she did.

Ev'ry time Brittany talked a little longer with her Santana would get a thrill deep in the pit of her stummick, like tingly, like what she'd feel when she sat on her legs too long, but in her stummick. Times were when she wanted to bed Brittany too, 'cept that it were a bit wrong, sleepin' with someone mind-touched. Felt like...what the jailers did to all of 'em. Weren't pretty. Santana couldn't bring herself to. But, gods and goddesses listenin', she really did want to.

Santana was watching the corridor, waiting for the jailers to come for her, when she saw a boy being forced up the metal stairs from the ground floor. His eyes were red and his jaw was gritted shut, his hair a mess across his face, and across his bare chest the word 'sodomite' was branded into him.

Brittany, sitting beside her, half-rose to her feet. Her eyes came wide, and she whirled so fast she toppled. Santana was out of her position in a flash, catching Brittany in her arms. Normally so relaxed, Brittany was tense under her, and she fought to get back, to press her face to the bars.

"Today's a saint day," she sang, her voice hoarse and straining to be louder, "-saints are for today, are you a saint? Today's a saint day-"

She spun her head and almost toppled, her legs shaking, but she was holding onto the bars and stayed upright. Santana held her from behind, supported her, laid her head on Brittany's bony shoulder.

"Help," Brittany whispered, her voice hoarse and her eyes focused, and Santana jerked, shocked.

"Today's a saint day," Brittany sang, and Santana licked her own lips. (Not Brittany's. She meant, she wanted to but Brittany was...focused now, concentratin' on somethin', even if she didn't seem mind-touched no more)

"Saints are for today," Santana joined her, louder. Speaking it. She tried to make eye contact with the girls sitting across from them, their heads down and despairin'.

"-Are you a saint?"

* * *

"We're gonna put dis boy with the coffee girl," one of the jailers said audibly, his voice echoing over the prison. "Dunno why they keep her alive and fed, she's too fat fer me."

"Hey, I likes a little cushion for the pushin'," the other 'boy' said, "It's my reward for workin' here. Mighty few out there in the hard times."

"Psh, but you're weird, boyo."

"You're one ta talk."

"This one for Jesse?"

"Hells yes. He likes 'em boys little."

The 'little boy' struggled, but the two jailers held him fast.

* * *

At last one of the girls looked up, locked eyes with Santana, then Brittany. Her eyes went wide, and she rose to her feet and clutched the bars, her smock all dirty white. She mouthed the words, and her roommate came with her.

All along the platforms, the girls came to stand at the bars and echo Brittany, and something low in Santana's body came to life, all fiery and flickers, lookin' at Brittany barin' her teeth, all fierce like the tigresses she'd saw in the shops at market-time.

"Today's a saint day," Santana chanted, hoarse and sibilant, and she could feel Mercedes' powerful voice from eight cells across sing it, wrap it around them and make it real strong.

"-Saints are for today," Santana chanted, and the boy looked up, his gaze startled, hair falling into his eyes.

"Are you a saint?" the boy mouthed, his eyes wide and glad. Brittany poked her tongue out at the boy and then she turned and her eyes saw Santana, really saw her for the first time, an' an arm crept around Santana's waist. Then mebbe it went a little lower, but Santana was pretty shocked already.

The flickers in Santana's stomach flared, until she was warm like it was summer, 'cept it was autumn goin' to winter.

"Today's a saint day..."

* * *

The jailers holding the boy looked at each other, and hastened their paces, their mouths workin' and sweat comin' to ooze out.

Kurt stumbled between them, his mouth already forming the familiar words, until the bars were tossed aside and he got flung into a cell with a powerful black woman like his teachers used ta be, and the jailers were hightailing it outta there after lockin' the gate.

The woman kept singin'.

"Today's a saint day," she sang, and she looked at him with understandin' in her eyes, and he found he was grinnin' and singin' the countermelody.

"Today's a saint day," she sang, and Kurt closed his eyes and breathed deep agin the pain, and sang with all his heart.

"An' tomorrer's a saint day-"

* * *

Brittany's eyes went wide as the unfamiliar voice came ringing through the hall, her tongue flicking out over her lips.

Santana swallowed, finding the sight far too attractive for what it was. Just a tongue-flick, eh?

"One of our boys're here," Brittany said, suddenly smiling wide, dropping out from the chant. Santana dropped, too, they didn't need her. There was pounding and clanging as the girls hit the bars.

"-Saints are for today-"

"-Cause everyday's a saint day-"

"Are you a saint?"

Brittany braced herself. Santana let go of her, somewhat uneasy.

"Hell yes we are! Saints!"

"-Today's a saint day-"

"Saints! Saints! Saints!"

"-An' tomorrer's a saint day-"

Santana stumbled backward, her eyes wide and her mouth dry. Brittany turned to her and grinned, wild, her hands forming movements and gestures and then-

"QUIET!" The warden clumped into the hall. "I'LL HAVE Y'ALL FLOGGED IF Y' DON'T CEASE THIS INFERNAL SINGIN'!"

"But we're Saints, motherfilcker! Y've demmed y'rself!" the boy shouted from eight cells down, and bared his teeth in a grin. "Y'r all filcked, 'cos today's a Saint day!"

"An' tomorrer's a Saint day!" Brittany screamed.

"Which day, Brit?" the boy shrieked.

Santana's eyes came wide open, and she wrapped her arms around herself. How'd the boy know-

"SAINT'S DAY!"

A loud bang echoed through the hall.

One of the jailers, the most cocky one, lifted his cap and smirked.

Santana's eyes narrowed.

"Noah," the boy called, from down the hall. "Let's go."

'Noah' sprinted up the stairs, unlocking the boy. He came along to Santana and Brittany's cell, and unlocked them.

"You-" he said, then turned away.

"I'm not sure I could forgive you, Puck," Santana said. "You killed Quinn. Indirectly, but you did."

"I..."

Brittany looked down.

* * *

The outside world was so much larger than Santana remembered.

Warmer, too. Brittany curled around her, in the bed they both owned, donated by the other Saints.

A pinky finger wrapped around hers, and Santana looked up.

"Are you feeling better, San?" Brittany asked.

"Why the lie?" Santana forced through her lips.

"I was broken, for a while there," Brittany said, "But then I was okay."

"But I-"

"Shh," Brittany said, another finger to Santana's lips. "Today's a saint day. Time enough for questions tomorrow."

"But tomorrow's a saint day too-"

"No, but today's a _special _saint day-"

Brittany tasted like sugar, and berries, wild and sweet.

* * *

**Prev:** Kurttany **Now:** Brittana **Next:** Sue/Sue


	9. SueSue

**Prev: **Brittana **Now:** Sue/Sue **Next:** Kuccedes Friendship

And now for something completely different. And stupid. And horrible. And _late. _But finally, donnnnne.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You**

_**

* * *

**_

_7. Your first valentine deserves to be sappy and/or mocking. I'm going to go for...both._

_

* * *

_

"You are all cordially invited, except for William, to the wedding of one groom, Sue Sylvester, to one bride, Sue. Sue will be taking Sue Sylvester's name, and this ceremony will be officiated by Reverend Sue Sylvester herself. That's right, Reverend Sue Sylvester is coming out of a million-dollar pension retirement, just for this special occasion. There will be food, wine, dancing, leather, and music of the proper kind, instead of that caterwauling that the Glee club boasts."

"Sue?" Will said, staring at his invitation. "If you weren't going to invite me, why did you hand me an invitation?"

"Oh William," Sue said. "I wanted you to see the glory of my wedding day, but be completely unable to attend because the ushers, Sue Sylvester, will block you at the door. And if you should insist on entering, Sue will douse you with boiling oil, to conduct an experiment on how much oil your hair can absorb."

Will grit his teeth.

"And now, I must be going. I have to arrange a meeting with a wedding planner. Sue Sylvester can't do this all herself, after all. That's what blackmailed planners are for."

* * *

"Ah, Sue," Sue Sylvester said, caressing her counterpart. "I am so glad to be able to finally join us together in holy matrimony."

"Ah...Coach Sylvester?"

"Yes, sandbags?"

"Why are you feeling yourself up in the corridor?"

Sue jerked her head up and dropped her arms. "Why, sandbags, I was checking to see if my breasts were still real, or if the sillicon in your hooters decided to spread, like a contagious yeast disease."

The girl gave her a venomous look that was nowhere near as effective as her mother's, although it was a very good attempt. Sue Sylvester marked that off as a 1.5/10, because even her mother only ranked a 4/10. Sue Sylvester had taken poisonous glares and turned them into an art form, and then patented them. Patent #3138980, as a matter of fact. Her poisonous glares, especially Glare #31, which caused a zombie apocalypse, or #14, which could start wars in otherwise peaceful countries, were amusing but dangerous to use, because if Sue Sylvester ran out of handy puppets, otherwise known as humans, she might actually have to do menial work.

Horrible thought. It made her shake in her tracksuit...if Sue Sylvester was anatomically capable of shaking, which in fact, she was not.

Oh yes, Sue Sylvester remembered turning #15 toward Eastern Europe. Those poncy Eastern Europeans should know better than to cross her. How _dare_ they charge her for a plumbing service they should be performing free of charge? Sue Sylvester let them into America by not opposing their movements.

* * *

"Holy shit, I think the usher is real," Finn murmured in a whisper, holding up his invitation so that Sue Sylvester could take it, stamp it with his attendance, and then physically _rip it apart, set it on FIRE, AND **JAM IT UP WILL SCHUESTER'S VOODOO DOLL'S ASS.**_

"Is the usher...some kind of doll? A body pillow?" Artie asked, and cringed as Tina looked over at him and narrowed her eyes. A moment later, she looked away again with a puff.

"Is a body pillow a pillow you put your body on?"

"...Yes," Artie said, his eyes darting around desperately for some sort of rescue.

"Oh! I should buy one then. My body aches sometimes after Coach Sylvester makes us practice."

The Sue Sylvester automaton finished ripping up Artie's and Brittany's beautifully embossed invitations. The Will Schuester voodoo doll began to look uncomfortable.

"Yes, uh...yeah," Artie said, desperately eyeing his girlfriend to look away from the horrible, horrible sight. "C'mon, let's get to our seats. The sooner we finish this, the sooner we eat. I'm hungry," he said, rubbing his stomach.

Brittany pushed him to his place, settling down beside him.

* * *

The automaton of Sue Sylvester, dressed in a suit and tie, addressed the congregation. Most of them were staring at the uncannily life-like robot/android/person, who looked down, pushed up golden reading glasses, and opened her book.

Sue Sylvester, dressed in a truly handsome suit, stood at the altar.

"Wait..." Finn said, in an undertone. "If Coach Sylvester's _here_, then who's the bride?"

Rachel patted his hand, but kept mum.

"I don't get this," Puck muttered. "The whole world's gone insane." He darted a look over at the bench, where Kurt had gotten 'invited', and brought his boyfriend along with him. Puck groaned and covered his eyes. Little Dude had brought his boyfriend back. "The whole _world_..."

The familiar tune of the Wedding March started up, in its original German, the German choir's voices soaring.

Sue Sylvester turned and squarely faced Brittany, a malignant anticipation in her eyes. Brittany paled, the blood draining from her face, and grasped Artie's hand so tightly her knuckles were white.

"Would the congregation stand for the entry of the bride."

As one, the rather large crowd rose to their feet and gaped at Sue Sylvester, walking in with her mother.

Sue Sylvester, at the altar, beamed as Sue Sylvester approached.

The glee club's jaws dropped, collectively, as Sue Sylvester lifted her hand and Sue Sylvester delicately put her hand into Sue Sylvester's hand.

"We are gathered here today," the priest began, flipping the pages as she looked up and fixed the congregation with her steady stare. "-To celebrate the joining in holy matrimony of Sue Sylvester and Sue."

* * *

"And do you, Sue Sylvester, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

"I do, with all my heart."

"And do you, Sue, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do."

"Sue Sylvester, you may now kiss yourself."

* * *

"Brain. Damage."

"...Over nine thousand."

* * *

"While Sue and Sue retire to their penthouse for their wedding night and subsequent honeymoon, please enjoy the food."

The guests stared up in shock, awe, and horror.

"The world has _two _Coach Sylvesters?" Quinn said. "We're all going to _die_. I want to see my baby at least once before I die..."

"Commemorative CDs of the soundtrack of Sue's wedding will be given out to all wedding attendees, personally mixed."

Blaine took the CD from the automaton, shot an eye toward Kurt, and tucked it into his blazer jacket.

"C'mon, Blaine," Kurt said, who hadn't seen it, or at the very least, hadn't guessed Blaine's nefarious plot for the music, took Blaine's hand in his. "Let's go dancing."

* * *

"I'm going to let you know now, Sue Sylvester," the man in tweed and a fez said, thrusting his finger out at her. "Your time-travelling has caused a great deal of trouble for me, and this is absolutely the last time that you will do such a thing."

"No thanks to you, Doctor," Sue Sylvester said. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a blushing bride to attend to."

The Doctor's complexion approached a very familiar green. He marched off inside the wedding reception, though it approximated a stagger rather than a true march.

Sue turned to Sue. "In light of missing equipment, I have procured...certain items."

"Of course you have," Sue said. "I could not expect any less from a person such as Sue Sylvester."

"Let's do the little death dance, then."

"Mm-hm."

* * *

Sam prodded one of the AV Club members. They keeled over, stiff as a corpse.

"You guys were the ones controlling the Sue Sylvester dolls, right?" he said. "What would make you do such a thing?"

"We have seen horrors," one of the AV Club members intoned, slightly more coherent than the rest. "Horrors beyond imagination."

"Yeast..." one of the younger boys murmured, before they vanished into the ethers of unreality, their tongues speaking a multitude of gibberish languages.

"Blood..." another said.

"Time," yet another.

"Time, pushed in and pulled out repeatedly, until it vomited minutes and seconds onto our unwary selves," the coherent guy said. Tears began to leak out of the corners of his eyes. "Please, do us the honor of severing our connection from this world."

"No!" one of the guys at the back yelled, the blank expression on his face still present. "Do not! Or we will spend the rest of eternity with those horrors that Sue Sylvester called, _face-to-face."_

"Face-to-_yeast_..."

"Cthulthu ftnag."

"Even the eldritch could not comprehend the horrors we face now."

"...okay," Sam said. "That's just...that's just creepy."

* * *

"Hey, dude," Puck said to the guy in tweed and a fez that stormed in, looking like he was about to cry in disgust and horror. At the moment he felt kind of the same, so the sympathy was pretty strong about now. "You look like you need a drink."

Puck pulled out a flask of the alcohol he'd smuggled in and passed it to the guy. "Kurt," he called, "This dude needs some of your chocolate."

Kurt froze from emptying the European chocolate dish into his sling-bag, and watched the man. He winced, wandered over, and handed a chocolate bar to him. "You need some of this, too?"

"You're both very nice boys," the Doctor wibbled, and took them. "I'll be keeping my eyes on you."

* * *

Sue Sylvester lay in bed with Sue Sylvester, thoroughly satisfied.

* * *

**Prev: **Brittana **Now: **Sue/Sue **Next: **Kurt/Mercedes Friendship


	10. Kurcedes Friendship

**Prev:** Sue/Sue** Now: **Kuccedes Friendship ** Next: **Klaine

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You**

**

* * *

**

_6. How many ways do I love you? Let me count the ways. Too many to speak of, dear girl, and so many ways I don't know how to put into words. But I suppose...for a long time I was happy in a confined world. I had forgotten how to live, you see, I only knew how to exist. But you. You give me courage, you give me hope. There is a big, wide world out there, and you're in it, and I want to be with you.

* * *

_

It was Valentine's Day again.

Kurt stared out of his apartment building's window, down the dizzying heights, to the ground below, with all its little people. Unbidden, his mind flashed back some nine or ten years.

Kurt shook his head manically, ridding himself of his thoughts. Was this what his days had boiled down to? Making a living in this new land, America, like his dreams had always told him - spending his days in this dreamland trying to forget the past? He leaned his head against the wall, and sighed.

A jet roared noisily overhead, and Kurt jerked awake, letting the curtain of his balcony fall in white waves, like so many petals of white flowers, the white flowers for death and remembrance, the field of white flowers to remember the lost and fallen. His breaths came shallowly, quickly, more difficult and choked up - zeppelins, their hulk looming, looming over his home, that sleepy village, picking through the ruins, through the ruins, through the ruins...

Valentine's Day.

Kurt marked it off his calendar with the red pen, and did his daily ablutions. He tried not to look into the mirror, for fear of what he might see there. Or what he might not see - such as a purpose.

Kurt's boots find purchase on the slick surface of the asphalt below, but his mind cannot grasp the days slipping by. The most he does to mark the passage of time is to cover each day with red pen on a calendar, but without purpose; there is no destination he is looking forward to, nor anything to count down from.

Day in, day out, they all seem the same to him. Pallid white sunlight, overcast days, shadows long and thick, gathering on the ground. Wake up in the morning, go on shift, endure his boss's harrassment of him for being a 'pretty boy' and for his open homosexuality, go home, watch soap operas in a language he only half-understands, fall asleep, sleepwalk to his bed, until the morning comes with pallid sunlight and the six o'clock news, repeat.

Chicago was a city of cafes and theatres, painful to his eyes but soothing to his ears. Every cafe he passed, he would look inside and see happy memories, nostalgia, stories told, answers lost. In his head he could hear the bump-thwack of the looms, blooming in his head, blossoming into full-blown memory...

But enough.

Valentine's Day.

Perhaps...

Kurt eyed the hearts on the street, the shops all decorated in pink and silver, primrose and white gold, hearts etched and interlinked and elongated to match the design of every shop. Candy floss vendors, on the sidewalk, swirling their fine sugar into art, into hearts. These didn'ttwang his heart, for his valentine had never subscribed to any of this: no, his sleepy hometown had never been so commercialised. Valentine's Day had been a time to return to the sleepy cafes, their bakeries making fresher bread and rich coffee (hard, after the rationing had begun), the lucky ones passing out small blocks of chocolat - chocolate, Kurt reminded himself. He was not in Canada, but America - Frenchmen were looked down upon, unconsciously.

Except for-his mind, on autopilot, warned off the name, warded off the pain.

Let those young couples on the streets, all happy and passionate and fake at the core, have their commercial products embossed with hearts.

No, Kurt wasn't bitter at _all._

Valentine's Day would not be a day of happiness for him, but a day of remembrance.

He turned around and went in search of a cafe.

* * *

The small cafe he arrived at sat in between two taller buildings; its interior was dimly lit, with only windows to let in natural light, the natural light that slanted in at late afternoon and early dawn, l'heure d'or et l'heure bleu. Unlike the brightly lit ones that advertised special coffees at special prices, this one sat home-like, not promising anything, but not lying, either.

It felt like home.

Kurt laid a hand on the lintel before he stepped in, and breathed in air that tingled, as if shocked.

The tiles were the same.

The walls were the same.

This cafe...

He half-expected to be able to walk up to the counter and to speak in his French-accented English that he had had when he was younger, and for Amelie to answer him, to reminisce about their boys, who they had both lost to the war, by the end.

But there was a girl at the counter with her nametag reading 'Rachel', instead, and Kurt was drawn out of his fantasy of the past.

"Hello?" he called. "I'd like a cup of your coffee, please."

"Anything special?" the girl said.

Kurt thought back to the coffee. The boy he had lost in that stupid war...Kurt had never drunk coffee then. And then Blaine...Blaine had known his coffee order. But he had to forget Blaine, now.

"...No."

"It'll be here in a minute," Rachel said, faux-cheerfully.

"Merci," Kurt said.

"Pardon?" Rachel said.

"Oh, sorry," Kurt said, his tone artificially light, a lump in his throat forming. Simply fantasies. Fantasies... "The cafe...reminded me of my childhood."

The girl peered at him. "You're not that old."

Kurt smiled sadly. "I've seen...more than you would think."

The mud, snow, the dirty slush, the bombs, the fire, the broken bodies and blood, old friends, new friends, old loves, dead and dying...

Rachel drew back, shaken. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"Whatever for?" Kurt asked. "It's not your fault."

"I'm sorry that you had to go through such things."

She turned and went into the kitchen, and Kurt swallowed, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. The concern of a stranger...it had been so long, since he'd felt that. America, for all its supposed 'kindness toward others', was very cold toward a foreigner.

"Here," Rachel said, returning a moment later. "Mocha coffee with caramel swirling and powdered sugar on top. Enjoy!"

Kurt took the mug in his hands, looking down at the concoction.

"No, really," Rachel added, softer. "Enjoy it."

Kurt smiled, wan. "Thank you, Rachel."

"You're welcome."

Kurt turned, and took long, slow steps toward the table in the corner, the one next to the window. He sank into the plush seat and hunched forward, taking one small sip. It was too sweet, much too sweet. Rummaging in his bag, he found the one bar of dark chocolate he always carried, and unwrapped the foil. He placed a block on the top of the coffee, and watched it sink into the coffee and melt.

Kurt inhaled, remembering chignon et cafe et chocolat, and watched the steam from his coffee rise.

* * *

A week after Valentine's Day.

It was the weekend, and Kurt did not feel like he wanted to stay in his apartment in his sleeping clothing all day. Nor did he feel like cooking, slaving away in the kitchen simply to forget, to forget.

He...needed a friendly face, even if an unfamiliar one.

His steps led him back to the cafe, even as his heart rose into his throat. He lifted a hand, and paused, feeling so much older in front of the cafe door. What was he thinking? This wasn't Valentine's Day. He didn't need to put himself through thinking about the memories, thinking about all the things that could have been. Bitter chocolat and coffee and chignon. He didn't have to think about any of that. And he would, if he stepped into this cafe, again.

He was only twenty-two, but he felt forty, fifty, sixty years of age, as if his smooth skin was wrinkled and spotty, his gnarled hands clutching at a staff. As if he was ready to slip away into the next unknown.

He...

He...

Should not be thinking. Pushing open the door, he walked in.

It quickly became a habit. On Saturdays he would put on his coat, and his feet would take him through the increasingly familiar route to the small cafe. He would talk briefly with Rachel, find his way to his table, and sit to watch the pedestrians pass by, twirling his finger through the coffee's rising smoke. Rachel rarely gave him the same coffee twice, seeming to delight in creating ever more ridiculous concoctions. Kurt appreciated it, he did, but could not seem to express his praise, even though the words fought at the roof of his mouth. Instead, he could only give small smiles when the coffees broke through his melancholy or startled him.

Rachel seemed to crave his approval. He knew not why. Even with other customers in the small cafe, Rachel would look after him, look to him. He did appreciate it. He did smile, or take her hand at times.

At the table, when his coffee's steam no longer rose, he would take a small sip, and then another, and another, until the mug was empty. He would pay, always the same coins, meticulously counted out, and slid across the counter with the coins between his fingers. Looking down at the coins like so, Kurt was always reminded of placing the coins on their village's boys, the coins to pay the ferryman.

Then he would turn around, and place his boots on the hot ground outside, out into the midafternoon sun.

Saturday again. A week before Valentine's Day again. A card deck of Saturdays, today; sans one Joker, the Joker that laughed at him, laughed at him, laughed at Kurt, where once he had been the Joker, now the old man, still a Fool, still.

His feet took him on the familiar path, treading the concrete pavements and the cracks, the planted trees shooting out of the ground.

He took his coffee (several layers of crystallized fondue, today) and sat down.

Propping his head up, Kurt turned to face the road, face the pedestrians walking by.

_Crunch._

_Crunch._

A smell came to him, a smell reminiscent of the faire in his hometown, children laughing and playing, and the smell of popcorn. Yes, that was what he smelt now: popcorn.

"Hey, why the long face?"

Kurt turned, puzzled, and looked up. A powerfully-built black woman stared down at him, and promptly slid into the plush seat opposite him.

"The name's Mercedes, and I can't stand seeing anybody so young and good-looking as you look so down."

Kurt looked away, and breathed in slowly.

"Hey," Mercedes said, and reached out a hand, pulling his chin back toward her. Kurt froze, feeling vulnerable for the first time in a long while. This position, it reminded him...mais ne pas se souvenir du passe. "Look at me. Why're you feeling so sad?"

"...It's a long story," Kurt said, finally, and took a sip of his coffee to hide from saying any more. It burned his tongue, made him wince at the strength of it, steam rose into his face, and a chunk of fondue fell off the tip and plopped into his coffee. A dollop of cream leaped up in response to land on his nose, and Kurt nearly went cross-eyed trying to see where it was.

Mercedes laughed, a full-bodied sound that soon had Kurt laughing too, his own laugh rusty and raw.

"That's not right," Mercedes said, when Kurt had fallen silent again. "Someone's laugh shouldn't sound like that. And, I think, I've got time. What's this long story?"

Kurt looked down.

"I'll sit right here until you tell me," Mercedes said, and crossed her arms.

_Crunch._

"And eat my popcorn. Nothing gonna tear me away from my popcorn."

Kurt laughed, a little more naturally, a little less rustily.

* * *

"I'm here on Tuesdays, too, seven o'clock and after."

* * *

Even though he hadn't said anything the first four visits, Kurt found himself anticipating Saturdays and Tuesdays more than any other day. The red pen on the calendar took on a new meaning, and Kurt watched the clock on Tuesdays like any other worker, took less shit from his boss on Tuesdays.

Slowly, slowly, Mercedes coaxed his story out of him.

* * *

"Que devais-je faire? _-What was I supposed to do?" _Kurt almost shouted, on his feet and glaring down at Mercedes, tears running down his cheeks. "Leave him on his own? Not to walk? I never considered that. _Never._ I may have regretted loving him so _much_ when he left me, but I would not have given up a minute with him, not one."

His voice echoed in the little wooden cafe, and Kurt sat down, heat rushing to his face.

Rachel, who had been cleaning a table next to them with swipes of her cloth, had not even pretended not to listen.

Mercedes regarded him with a steady gaze. "If that's all, Kurt," she said, "Then why are you like this?"

Kurt slumped. "I haven't told you about...afterward."

* * *

The war. The war struck them all, from the oldest to the littlest babes in their mothers' arms. Kurt rubbed his eyes as he talked, staring out the window and never, never, looking to Mercedes.

"The war - it...it scarred all of us. It was as if we were in a cage, and everywhere we turned, bars, closing us in. We could see the outside, but we were reminded, always reminded, of someone we'd lost."

Kurt stared down at his hands. "I...there was a girl I'd met in...middle school? High school? Something like that. Her name was Brittany...she...she had been broken far, far worse by the war than I had. Her long-time boyfriend, RT, he...lost his legs in the war, and got gangrene, and when he came home, he died practically in her arms. She nursed him until the day she died. She wasn't...she was never really what you'd call smart, but she loved him."

He took another sip of his coffee, the foam staining his upper lip for a moment before he wiped it away.

"She'd been there for _so long_," he said, staring without looking, without registering. "She'd been broken for so long. I thought I was broken then," he whispered, "But I - next to her -" He shook his head and looked down, at his callused hands. "I started taking care of her, like I'd taken care of my boy. She'd sing this little song over and over, a song that her boyfriend wrote, when he was in our school's jazz band..."

He hummed a passage, and Mercedes stiffened. Kurt clasped his fingers. Unclasped them. Clasped them again.

"Today's a saint day," Mercedes sang quietly, and Kurt looked up, his eyes wide.

"That..." Kurt said. "Where did you learn that?"

"You...I..." Mercedes said, seemingly at a loss for words. "I should show you a YouTube video, soon. It's a viral hit. That song..." Her eyes were kind, but glistened with tears. "But what...what happened to her? Why couldn't you stay with her?"

"One day," Kurt said, "I came to her house. I was a block away when an ambulance came past, an ambulance from a big city, not our town. Brittany was gone. I never knew what happened to her, after that."

Mercedes laid a hand on his again, her eyes gentle. "I know what happened to her, afterward."

Kurt raised eyes to her, a glimmer of hope shining there. "Truly?"

Mercedes nodded.

They sat in silence a while longer.

"But that's not all, is it?" Mercedes asked, looking at him. "The way you are...it isn't just because of Brittany, and your boy."

"...No," Kurt admitted.

It took four more visits before he could speak about Blaine Andersen. All the while, Mercedes simply sat with him and ate her popcorn, or drank their coffees before paying separate bills and leaving separate ways.

* * *

After the war had ended, inconclusive, incoherent, parts of sanities screaming away at each other as the body bags were loaded into graveyards, a closed-casket mass burial, Kurt walked away from his sleepy hometown. Most of the youth left over in their country did, flooding away from it, a desolate homeland, a graveyard. The border in contest closed down from lack of use. They left the dead to their haunts.

Kurt went southwest, heading across rivers and oceans into France proper, the France that had lent a hand for its colony, sending in its Foreign Legion.

He met a boy there in that French high school, Blaine Andersen of the slicked-back hair and ready smile, and they sang flirty duets (Mercedes choked into her coffee) and they knew each other's coffee orders and they were so very alike and the days passed with fun and it was halcyon...

Kurt had loved him, and a part of him did still; just as he had loved his lost boy in the war.

Mercedes laid a hand on his, neither giving comfort nor advice, simply offering presence.

Kurt drank his coffee in one shot. It was too sweet for his mood, too sweet for the pallid light outside that breathed pessimistic reality, instead of optimism. He wasn't that young, anymore.

"I'll get you a refill," Mercedes said, and walked up to the counter. Her steps echoed on the tile, thud-click, thud-click, bump-thwack, bump-thwack, and Kurt could hear again the sound of the looms.

Kurt watched the blonde woman at the counter step aside for Mercedes before resuming her conversation with Rachel, then stared down at the dregs of his coffee in his cup.

"Strong, long black coffee," Mercedes said, returning with two double shotglasses, which she placed gently in front of him.

"Tell me more about Blaine."

* * *

Over the next ten visits Kurt spilled everything he had known about Blaine's life and personality. Then, why, when, and where Blaine had left him, for an Asian boy who he slept with after a drunken Spin The Bottle night. Mercedes watched him calmly, emptying her tub of Garrett's popcorn every visit, and Kurt learned to keep talking until she was done. If not, she would ask piercing questions that hurt and made him question why he did the things he did. It was easier...easier just to keep talking, and strangely, the longer he talked, the easier it seemed to face the memories that he kept tightly locked inside his heart.

Over the four visits after that, Kurt told Mercedes what it had been like, to want to make Blaine so jealous that Blaine would take him back that he would date a metrosexual friend of his. Wryly smiling down into his coffee cup, Kurt told Mercedes what dating Jesse had been like. To his gratitude, she laughed at the story, chuckling quietly between bites of popcorn.

"What are you doing with your life, Kurt?"

Kurt looked down at his hands, bereft of the coffee mug. (Rachel had already collected it and left to see her blonde friend. Lover? Kurt couldn't tell. It wasn't his business, anyway.)

"I don't know, Mercedes. Merde," he sighed. "What have I become?"

"What do you want to be?" her gaze was unrelentless, fixed on him.

"...I don't know."

"I think, Kurt, you should try to find love again."

Kurt stared at her. Then he stared at his hands.

"...I..."

* * *

Kurt marked off another Valentine's Day with red pen, and swung his legs to the floor. After going through his daily ablutions, his feet trod the familiar path back to the cafe. It was a Tuesday...Mercedes would be there.

Loving anyone else? That would be impossible. Who could match Noah? Blaine? No one, that's who. No one...

Kurt readjusted the sling bag on his shoulder, holding his precious things from his hometown, the symbolic bittersweet bar of chocolate that he would melt into his coffee. The things that he wanted to show to Mercedes, to remember, remember, on this Valentine's Day.

The cafe's welcome chimes jingle-jangled as he walked into the cafe, treading the familiar tiles, and the other girl at the counter looked up.

Kurt had never really paid attention to her, especially since Rachel was the one mostly to take care of him. But she...was she...

"Amelie?" Kurt whispered, his heart thumping fast in his chest, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes.

"...Yes? I'm Amelia." the girl at the counter said, stepping forward. "...You're Kurt, right? Rachel mentioned you."

"Amelie, mademoiselle, bonjour," Kurt said.

Amelia tilted her head to the side. "I took French in high-school, Kurt, but I," she smiled, embarrassedly, "I've forgotten most of it."

"Oh," Kurt said. He sucked in a breath, placing a hand on his chest. His heart was still beating too fast, but...

"Amelie, I'm sorry to pry, but do you have a boyfriend called 'Jet'? A dangerously reckless boy? Black-haired?"

Her eyebrows furrowed. "His name is Jed, but otherwise...yeah," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry - have we met before? Or have you met Jed before? How did you know that?"

Kurt's eyes closed briefly, in pain and memory and remembrance, and finally, some sense of closure, a circle.

"Amelie," he said, and rummaged in his sling bag, and found it.

"Please," Kurt said, offering her the dark chocolate, that bittersweet bar, in his two hands. "Take this, and share it with your boyfriend. Enjoy your love," he said, smiling sadly. "For my sake. Please. Take the chocolat."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Amelia said, and took the chocolate, placing it safely into a pocket, treasuring it.

Her eyes projected reassurance, this familiar stranger -

Kurt smiled, shedding his fears and sorrows and measuring the positives, treasuring the past. He was French, after all, and he _would_ love again.

* * *

**Prev:** Sue/Sue **Now: **Kuccedes Friendship **Next:** Klaine


	11. Klaine

**Prev: **Kuccedes Friendship **Now:** Klaine **Next:** Blaineofsky

Bad poetry! Galore! Even though it's no longer Valentine's Day! Lenore! And quoth the Raven: Never-more.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You**

**

* * *

**

_8. Valentine's Day is a time for commercial, sappy, _bad_ poetry and love letters and chocolate. I don't think that the way I love you is commercial. I'm not head-over-heels for you. Well, I _am_ but I'm cynical about it, so ... I'm not commercial. That said, I...well...I can write bad poetry just as well as anybody else._

_'Hot'. You know what, sweetheart? _You're _hot._

_I'm not going to let up on the bad poetry, though. Mockery, away!_

* * *

"What?" Kurt said, backing away from him with his eyes wide, as if he was totally shocked by the proposition. Blaine smirked and kept the door from swinging closed with the palm of his hand, caressing the smooth grain of the door. He narrowed his eyes and smirked wider. Kurt's answering smile had nothing of the shyness that his demeanor would imply, and everything of the mischief that characterised who he was.

How could people not see this fabulous boy? Not want to have him? Not want to have him smile at them?

* * *

_Your smile, it's a splendid thing,_  
_You involve your whole body in it. I, I'm shivering when you smile because it lights your eyes and I have this feeling that I should be singing, because you're so appealing,_  
_um, I'll be singing, yes I'll be singing, with joy._  
_Because you're smiling. So yeah._

* * *

Blaine stepped forward, measuring the distance of each step. The heavy door shut behind him with a click, and his hand locked it before he took another step forward. A step forward. Another. Kurt backed away the exact distance of each step, his smirk so wide it would be better called a smile, if it hadn't had that mischief clinging about his lips.

Kurt's back met the wall behind him at the corner of the room, and Blaine stepped forward again. And again. And again, until he could reach out with an arm and trap Kurt. Blaine swiped his other thumb across Kurt's lips and looked directly at him. He held Kurt's gaze long enough that Kurt began to fidget, uncomfortably.

"What?" Kurt said again. "What did you have planned, anyway?"

"Well," Blaine said, slowly. "It's Valentine's Day, I've locked the door...I've told Wes and David to stop anyone from...bothering the two of us...and..." he leaned down and kissed Kurt, parting his lips with his tongue.

"Oh," Kurt said when they broke apart. "I guess we could...but, wouldn't, I mean-"

Blaine snapped away from him at once, backing away very quickly. "Oh no, no, we weren't going to do That. Tsk tsk tsk, I never knew you were so _dirty,_ Kurt."

Kurt's face went bright red. It was surprising, Blaine thought, how fast Kurt could change skin colour.

"No, the kiss?" Blaine said. "I'm sorry. I couldn't resist."

"Don't you dare apologise for kissing me," Kurt said. He peeled himself off the wall and made an exaggerated show of breathing heavily. "Do you see what you do to me?"

"Yes," Blaine breathed. "I do see."

The ensuing silence was angular and a bit awkward.

* * *

_Do you see what you do to me?_  
_Well of course not, we've shut off the video._  
_I'm always laughing or smiling, okay, or ignoring you._  
_But that's because I'm thinking of all the things I want to do with you._  
_...Not like that, you dirty, dirty..._  
_And okay, that was my fault anyway, so I can't blame Anybody but myself._

_But it's so fun, just like loving you Something I can't help but do. It's in my happiness,_  
_And I thrill, everyday, even still, when you talk to me, and I gotta be myself.

* * *

_

"Er," Kurt said. "Why are you here then, Blaine?"

Blaine slipped a disc into his CD player, concealing the cover picture (of Sue Sylvester's wedding picture) on it, and turned on the music. "Sing with me." He made some show of singing falsetto along with the singer.

Kurt's smirk returned. "You're so ridiculous, Blaine."

"But you love it. Come on," he said, grabbing Kurt by the hand and dragging him into the middle of the room. "You're so good to me, baby - baby..."

Kurt closed his eyes and shook his head and smirked. "You're not going to get me to sing that, Blaine. You're really not."

"Can you deny this hot body? Come on, Kurt. You know you want to."

"What are we, thirteen? I can deny your...meager charms, boyfriend."

"Meager, now? And how did I land you, then?"

"It was entirely out of pity for your puppy-dog eyes."

"You mean these ones?"

Kurt squinched his eyes shut tighter. "Not looking!"

Blaine kissed him gently, once on each eyelid, on the tip of his nose, on his lips. "Cute as that is, come on - you know the words, I hope?"

"Of course," Kurt said. He rolled his eyes. And froze. "Darn, I fell right into your trap."

"Can you resist this face? Well? Can you?"

Kurt started to laugh. "Oh, well, okay, no, I guess - I guess not."

* * *

_Roses are red, violets are blue,_  
_I wish I could've stayed, to hand your valentine to you._  
_Instead you gotta deal with this weird online filck._

_You know I can't resist anything you want Whatever you want, if I can give it, I will._

* * *

"You're so good to me, baby - baby..."

"Stop that," Kurt said, and slapped him in the head. "I should be the one saying that, anyway."

"We can both sing it, okay?"

"Fine."

Blaine restarted the track.

"You're so good to me - baby, baby..."

"You're a split-second ahead of me! We should be in time!"

"What, are you Rachel or something?"

"Shh, the music's continuing."

"We suck so hard-"

"I wanna lock you up in my closet-"

"Hmm. Actually, I would love to suck y-"

"B-Blaine!" Kurt said, stumbling over his words and missing the cue. "Sugar...now we have to start again. Again! For the fourth time!" Kurt was bright red at this point. "This was your idea in the first place! Stop being...stop being so...arrrgh."

"I couldn't resist," Blaine said. He smirked. Kurt hit him.

"You're such a-a- horndog. I don't even-I don't even know-"

"Can't help it. I have this beautiful boyfriend, you see, and he's standing rather close to me."

Kurt rolled his eyes and restarted the track.

"For the eighth time, Blaine! I want to get it right!"

"Well..." Blaine said, tilting his head to the side and thinking hard. "If I can get my hands on you, I'll behave."

"...Fine," Kurt said. "You can touch me."

"Yay!"

"N-N-Not like that!" Kurt was almost glowing red. "Normal touching, Blaine. Normal!"

"Aww. Ninth time lucky?"

"You're the one causing the problems in the first place."

Blaine slapped at the player.

"You know what's perfect timing?"

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"You're so good to me, baby - baby..."

"I want to lock you up in my closet-" Blaine advanced on Kurt again, and Kurt gave way to him, beat by beat, his smirk wider than ever, his eyes dancing. He lived for this, singing and loving, maybe both at the same time. His thoughts flickered further down that track and he clapped his hand to his mouth to prevent a giggle from slipping out.

His face was so hot he was probably glowing.

"When no one's around-" Kurt backed into the same corner, and Blaine trapped him on both sides with his arms, leaning in until their faces were almost touching. Kurt tried to hold his breath. If he breathed Blaine in about now, he wouldn't be able to resist...touching...and he wanted to get through the song first.

"I want to put your hand in my pocket..." Blaine backed away, smirking. Kurt brought a hand to his chest and pushed against it, trying to quell the butterflies. To think that Blaine - this beautiful, amazing boy, wanted to kiss him, wanted to...

(permanently red face now)

...do things to him that he fantasized about, and that he could kiss him anytime, do...things to him anytime, and no one would object or call him out - it was intoxicating, that feeling.

"Because you're allowed-" Blaine made his smile wider, tried to impress upon this shy boy, this beautiful boy, that he really was. He was allowed. Dalton was a safer place. There wasn't any bullying here. Kurt could be free to do whatever he wanted, and Blaine would back him all along the way.

* * *

_Like a cucumber in the middle of June I'm mildly chilled _  
_and I know that winter's coming soon._  
_The winter that is where, you bundle up and don't care _  
_about me the same way I do for you._  
_Cause I know, (three-four)_  
_And you know, (three-four)_  
_That I love you, more than words could say. Like a cucumber. In the middle _  
_Of June._

_You smell like summer. Like sausages. In sizzles. On a fire._  
_I mean, what a bummer. Because it's winter now, and I'm a cucumber._  
_And sausages and cucumbers. Don't go together. At all._  
_But if we make it work, they will._

_Cause it's February. And it's summer. And there's ice-cream lines._  
_And every, every day I'm a little more in love with you. Since it's Valentine's._  
_And you deserve more than a cucumber._  
_What a bummer. Beautiful girl...

* * *

_

"I want to-" Blaine's jaw fell open, unbidden. His breath caught and he almost choked on air.

"-drive you into a corner," Kurt sang, his tongue caressing his lips. He bit on them, and advanced on Blaine, his eyes dark with want.

Blaine staggered back, faltering and shocked. Kurt reached out and pressed a palm to Blaine's chest, his warm, broad chest, and pushed him softly. Blaine fell down onto the carpet with a modicum of grace, opening his mouth as if to say something. Kurt leaned over him.

"And kiss you without a sound..." Kurt straddled him and leaned forward, still singing, making his tone smoky and seductive.

Blaine's eyes were so wide - Kurt laughed on the inside and kissed him in the gap between lines. With the kiss, Blaine regained his bearings, delight lighting him up from the inside until he felt as if he should be glowing with it, light emanating from everywhere. Kurt was...he was...

"I want to stay this way, forever-I'll say it loud," Blaine whispered as Kurt sang it, then matched his voice to Kurt's for the next line.

"Now you're in, and you can't get out-" Blaine trapped him in the circle of his arms, lay back until they were sprawled on the floor, all limbs and singing to each other, their eyes delighted and their voices ringing.

"You make me so hot, you make me wanna drop," Kurt sang to his boyfriend, and then especially meant the next line. Yeah, the land of realistic emotion? Embodied. By. The next line.

"You're so ridiculous! But I can barely stop..." He grinned down at Blaine, and Blaine pulled him in to kiss him. Kurt stopped breathing for a while. Which matched the lines of the song that they missed, so he didn't mind. Actions - same but better than words - right?

"You're so fabulous," Blaine countered him with the same amount of emotion, "You're so good to me - baby, baby..." He pulled Kurt up and dragged him along by his wrist. With a sweep, he cleared the table and toed off his shoes, dragging Kurt upward so that they stood on the table. Kurt looked bemused, so Blaine kissed him. Better for him to be dazed than confused. Blaine unbuttoned his dress shirt, loosening his tie and setting his hands on Kurt's hips. This would be about the time f-whaa-what was heeheee-can't-think-

Kurt ran his hands under Blaine's shirt, marvelling at his own daring, and traced the musculature there.

"I-I can-I can show you all the places-" Blaine stuttered, trying to keep pace with the music, and mostly succeeding. "-Y-You've never been-but you're getting there. Real fast," he added in a fervent whisper, and tried to moan quietly so he wouldn't interrupt the music.

"And I can make you say Anything," Kurt sang, the mischief animating him full-bore now, sliding his hands up toned, tanned flesh. Kurt memorised every moment of making his older, self-confident boyfriend stutter and bite back his moans. "Say 'anything'."

"Anything! Just keep going!" Blaine hissed. Kurt hooked a leg over his and tilted them off the table onto the other couch.

"-That you never said-and I will let you do anything-" Kurt sang this a lot quieter than the other lines, but with no less emotion. He went bright red again, though this time the red extended down past his neck. Blaine twitched with the need to know how far down the red extended, and bit his lip. He shifted, so that Kurt wouldn't notice what else twitched.

Blaine ran his hands up Kurt's side to tickle him, making Kurt flail. His smirk twisted a little bit as Kurt's flail hit him in the face. He winced. "But I could do this," he whispered to Kurt, timing it just right -

"Again and again-making you happy, I mean," he added, and wrapped his arms around Kurt to occupy him, tangling their legs up further. "And now you're in, and you can't get out..."

"I don't want to," Kurt whispered into his shoulder, and kissed him on the lips.

"You make me so hot-"

"Shut up, Blaine, and kiss me."

"Gladly."

Blaine bit his boyfriend's lip, and Kurt moaned against him and parted, while the music played on. Except that that sounded like it was band music, which it-why was he thinking again?

He broke away for the bridge, though. He liked the bridge. He did.

"Kiss me-gently-"

"I was, you prick...okay, so it got pretty rough near the end, but still! it was pretty gentle...mostly...oh sugar, I called you a prick, I'm so sorry..."

Blaine grinned to let him know that that was alright, and also that his shade of red was quickly becoming Blaine's new favorite colour.

* * *

_You like red and black,_  
_I like blue and white,_  
_Together we will have since I love you,_  
_All the colors of the red-and-black-and-blue-and-white rainbow._  
_To color all the papers that we'll write and act  
together-_

* * *

  
"Always, I know," Kurt joined him, and smiled, their voices intertwining and spiralling and caressing each other's, like their lips and hands were a moment ago.

"Hold me, love me, don't ever go-"

"It's mutual, Blaine, please believe me."

"I will. I will...you're so good to me..."

"That's coming up soon, boyfriend, but not right-you make me so hot-"

"-you make me wanna drop," Blaine finished, backing his boyfriend from underneath with the melody, steady and solid, letting Kurt soar free as he needed to do, wanted to do, lived to do; soared high effortless over the line, hit each note and rang them against their linked hands and bodies and voices, soprano E-flat's and almost, almost higher, this potential, this full potential that Kurt was reaching even now.

He was so in awe of his boyfriend, the timbre of his voice, the fullness of his tone; he held the embodiment of this amazing voice in the crook of his arms and sang, too, but there were tears in the corner of his eyes. Just let there be - just let him be with Kurt. Always and always. Again and again.

"You're so ridiculous-" Kurt dropped back into melody for a split-second and poked Blaine in the chest. "Why are you crying?"

"I can hardly breathe," Blaine said, his voice catching and going breathy. "Your-awesome makes me wanna scream - why you so fabulous? You're so good to me-"

"That was positively Jamie of you," Kurt whispered. "'Why you so fabulous?' Imitating a faux-Asian accent or something?"

* * *

_Why you so, good to me?_  
_Why you so, fantastic?_  
_Why you still, smile at me?_  
_It not good, I not know, _  
_How to say, "Hallo."_  
_"I love you," "I Chinee,"_  
_"I can't do, dis breathing thing,"_  
_"What? Is this, what you call love-"_  
_Happy Val-entine's Day I Chinee, you know I say _  
_Wo ai ni, I love you, I love you,_

_three times I'll say it,_  
_Superstitions, let me bind me to you.

* * *

_

"Or something," Blaine whispered back. "You make me so hot-"

"You're so ridiculous, but I can barely stop-" Kurt overrode his post, weaving the harmony with the track and Blaine's voice, echoing rising dipping descant, his voice quicksilver silver around everything. Blaine beamed and drew breath as Kurt went on, imbuing everything he had and readying he had.

"You're so fabulous," he sang to his boyfriend, and his boyfriend sang right back, their voices mixing and matching and ringing and vibrating against each other and amplifying each other, their tones copper and silver and gold and perfect, perfect.

"You make me so hot, you make me wanna drop," Kurt sang to his boyfriend, and uncoiled off him, untangled himself from Blaine until he could plop into the couch next to his boy and rest his head on Blaine's (warm, broad, amazing) shoulder and sing to the room at large, to the world at large. It wasn't innocent lyric by any means, but it could be Pure.

"You're so ridiculous, I can barely stop-" Kurt.

"I can hardly breathe, you make me wanna scream," Blaine rose in volume and gravitas, as pure as Kurt could have ever wanted it, and Kurt matched it and loved it and rose with it, and loved it some more.

"You're so fabulous, you're so good to me- baby, baby..." Blaine smiled at the wall in front of them, closing his eyes and letting the thrum ring through him.

"You're so good to me-baby, baby..." Kurt whisper-sang to him, and worked his hand into Blaine's, folding their fingers together.

"You're so good to me."

* * *

"You know what, Blaine?"

"What?"

"Personally I think you've gotten better at showing your _feelings_, song or no song."

Blaine chuckled. "Happy Valentine's Day, Kurt. My valentine's day present to you."

"What, being annoying? Stop. Stop that. Stop wooing me with those eyes."

"I can't help it if I'm perfect. Ow. See, I knew you'd do that."

"Just like I know that, When you're being an idiot, my hand gravitates to your shoulder. quickly."

* * *

_Yeah, so, as usual, all the poetry here has a tune._

_Hope you enjoyed the horrible poetry. XD I'll sing them to you soon, if you want. Have a happy birthday party, yo._

**Prev:** Kuccedes** Now:** Klaine **Next:** Blaineofsky


	12. Blaineofsky

**Prev:** Klaine **Now: **Blaineofsky **Next:** Bike Chanderson

Wow, horror. Reason =/= Fic...again. Well. Sorta. I mean the reason with all my heart. The fic...er...it's not...pretty.

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You

* * *

**

_5. I know you're celebrating Singles Awareness Day. I should be, too but I-hang on, no, I'm not single, what am I _saying_. Still...even if I wasn't dating Wolfie, I wouldn't be celebrating it anyway. I'm gonna take a page from SoSR...'I'm your friend, even if you aren't mine.' You got it? I will love you for who you are, even if you don't feel the same way. I will protect you, I will stand by you, I will pick you up when you're down. I'm your friend, even on the times when you aren't mine. Like period days. Or boyfriend days. Or general-hatred-at-all-men days. I will be with you.

* * *

_

Courage, Dave.

Dave Karofsky stared up at his room's ceiling in the middle of the night, pressing his pillow over his head. Downstairs, his father was on one of his rants again, and his little brother was taking the full brunt of it, despite being only three. He hated himself for running - wasn't he supposed to be the older brother? - but if he'd stayed, his father would have no problems about hitting him. He was older than six, and in this family, everyone had to look out for themselves.

Courage, Dave.

His only friend, Harry, hovered five inches over him, flying over the bed; he had the same hair, dark like his, moving in the same breeze that made Dave's room's curtains sway. Harry whispered the word over and over.

Courage, Dave.

Dave had only opened that Harry Potter book because it looked interesting, and it was the first - and only - word he'd saw before his father had slammed the book out of his hand and thrown it in the trash.

He looked it up in the dic-shun-nair-ry later. It was his favorite word.

Courage, Dave.

Courage...

Dave slid from his bed, and headed downstairs. His weight made the wooden stairs creak alarmingly.

Courage...

Upon noticing Dave's entry, his father spun around and backhanded him across the face. Dave's little brother fled the room, shrieking and snotty.

Courage...

As Dave sprawled across the ground, he struggled to get back on his feet. Harry's hand was warm on his cheek, trailing down and down until a finger trailed under his chin, or was that blood? He could never tell.

Courage...

* * *

Curiosity.

When Dave was nine, he snuck out of class and into the school library, ducking through the shelves until he found the Harry Potter book again. He hadn't much practice at home, but he managed to read the whole book before his teacher found him. Probably because she didn't think to go to the library, since Dave's father had told her he wasn't that type of person.

Curiosity, Dave.

Harry floated next to him, his feet not touching the ground, like Nearly Headless Nick, like a ghost. Harry laid a hand on his shoulder, urging him to find out.

Curiosity, Dave.

His father got called into the school because Dave had played true-want again. His father was polite to the teacher, but as soon as Dave got to his father's car he could tell that his father was angry, so angry.

Harry sat on Dave's lap and put his arms around him and held him tightly as his father drove tightly, angrily, swearing at the other drivers around him.

Courage, Dave.

Dave closed his eyes as Harry whispered the word in his ear, over and over and over, as his father got out The Belt.

"You enjoy having the belt, don't you, David?" his father asked, and his hand lifted and fell, lifted and felled, lifted and fell. "You secretly enjoy it every time I have to get out the belt. Why else would you mis," lifted, fell, "Be," lifted, fell, "Have, so _often_?" Lifted and fell, lifted and fell, lifted and fell. "Or you're secretly a fag on the inside. Are you that, David? A sick, unnatural inhuman object?" Lifted and fell, lifted and fell and fell and fell and lifted...

When The Belt time was over and his father lurched out the door, still steaming mad, Dave lay on his stomach, staring up at the sofa. He couldn't sit down. It hurt too much.

Harry laid a hand on his back and looked at him with those lime green eyes. Dave was breathing, breathing hard, he wanted to cry but his father had told him that no man ever cries and he wanted, he wanted, he wanted his father to love him, to say that, just once. So he'd make his father proud.

Your dad sounds like the Dursleys, Harry said. Dave couldn't object.

His mom came back two hours later, and got ice for his butt. Dave clung to her.

Curiosity, Dave.

"Mom...why's Dad the way he is?"

* * *

Ambition, Dave.

Dave plucked himself off the ground. At ten, he was kinda fat, and he was being picked on by the other guys. He could fight. He could take care of himself. But...he was still being picked on. At least his father liked him more now. Respected him more.

He didn't want just his dad's respect. He wanted..._everyone's._

Barring respect, Dave thought, staring sightlessly at the classrooms' walls, he'd have _fear._

Ambition, Dave.

Harry walked beside him now, his eyes hard. Bitter. The set to his lips cruel, except when he smirked, or smiled.

To everyone else, Dave knew, Harry would be dapper, a gentleman to the ladies, a nice guy to the guys. To him, Harry would be cruel, nasty, mean...when planning retribution with Dave. Otherwise, he was still Dave's best friend, who would smile at him and listen to him when Dave's father was mean to him again.

Ambition, Dave.

Ambition...

Manipulation...

Vines, like tentacles, a tendril in every pie...

Dave smirked, his thoughts running ahead of himself.

Harry turned up his nose as Dave walked by a group of 'tough guys'.

"Don't snort, Harry," Dave whispered, plans unfurling and folding in his mind, falling away as they were rejected by the dozens. "I'll be one of them, someday."

Harry placed a hand on his back, and steered him away.

That night, and in the nights after that, Dave told Harry about his plans. Harry smiled, nodded, and held Dave, as they both stared blankly into mid-air, Dave's little brother spinning lies about his time at school and both his parents eating it up, as usual.

* * *

Loyalty, Dave.

Who needed it?

Fifteen. Dave cast aside the fiction of Harry Potter, standing on his own. He didn't need invisible (though tangible) friends. He had self-esteem. He had influence, he had power, his father no longer cared about Dave.

What other reason was there?

Courage, he had, enough to face up to the muscleheads. They needed him to run interference on the field; his bulk no longer something to be teased, but appreciated. Curiosity, he had, enough to peer into every secret. Ambition, he had succeeded in; everyone else left him alone, enough for him to sink his fingers into every pie, metaphorical and literal.

He got every status symbol, the minimum necessary, including the obligatory Cheerios girlfriend. She wasn't too much of a bitch, and at times had caught her reading Harry Potter. Other than a brief glance at her assets, Dave left her alone. Provoking the wrath of the Abstinence Club, and coincidentally the main power in the school, Quinn Fabray, didn't interest him. Sex with her never interested him anyway.

Her hands, anyway, were too soft; softer than Harry's.

* * *

The fag had come back to McKinley. No, Kurt. And...he'd brought a boy with him.

The boy was...

Was...

The fag's locker, on the inside, had a collage of that boy, saying, 'Courage'.

Dave ripped it off the locker with the minimum of force, his anger completely cold. At least, that's what he told himself. He slashed out every 'Courage' with a red pen-knife, and carved a lightning bolt scar on every forehead. Then unnatural, additional smiles, crept across the boy's throats.

Harry laid a hand on his shoulder.

Dave ignored him, slamming the fag's locker shut and stalking away, his fists opening and closing, leaving the fag's collage inside.

To believe that there was once a time when he had watched the fag in the halls...

Be strong, Dave.

"Shut up, Harry," Dave muttered. "_Shut up._"

* * *

That night he kept seeing Harry as having that boy's face, dark hair like his, green eyes, his mouth open wide in a scream and his eyes sparkling (with tears? Something else? Something deep told him that he should enjoy it, take it, endure it) as The Belt hit him, over and over and over and over and...

Harry held him in his nightmares, wrapping warm arms around him, as Dave's throat locked, his screams trapped inside him.

* * *

**Prev: **Klaine **Now: **Blaineofsky **Next: **Bike Chanderson


	13. Bike Chanderson

**Prev:** Blaineofsky **Now: **Bike Chanderson **Next: **Kurt/Mike

Reason has nothing to do with fic. Also, since it's post-Valentine's Day, I return to mocking you as usual.

And...speaking of chocolate, there's a chocolate-making place in Sengkang Mall, relatively near my house. Should I camp out there and learn how to make chocolate, seeing as it attracts you so?

* * *

_13. I would have given myself for all those girls, beautiful. These girls, moaning and sobbing about how no one would /try/ to get close to them, no one would even bother about them, they're fat, they're ugly, everyone thinks so...I didn't. I thought they were beautiful. I thought they were pretty. I thought they were selling themselves short. And I was always there. They never gave me the chance. But you have. For that, if we never get anywhere, properly, together, I'll give you everything you deserve to have. And that is - everything. But we'll both be happy, in the end, I know it; and I'd rather have you as a friend in my life than not at all.

* * *

_

How he ends up in Mike Chang's bed is difficult for him to explain.

Blaine blames it on the alcohol. The alcohol, and the vague, probably cannibalistic urges that drive him to want to know what Mike Chang tastes like. He looks delicious, the toned skin and the tapered line and arch of his shoulders, golden-brown skin when he exposes it. The scent of rich, bitter coffee rises from along the line of his clavicle, well-tempered with chocolate, dark and sweet.

One minute he is kissing Rachel (fake cherries and peaches); he thinks he remembers, through that numbness of alcohol (gold and black and brown, the color of the room (and red, but he disregards that)), that Rachel's lips are so much softer, rounder, fuller, than any boy's he has ever kissed, save Kurt.

Kurt...

He is...he hopes he hasn't hurt Kurt too much. The truth is that as much as Blaine cares for him, in a lot of ways Kurt is his good, his _greatest_ friend, and he would much rather have Kurt as a friend than as a lover. Kurt is too awkward and Blaine isn't the best of teachers in terms of the dance that leads to the little death. Le Danse Macabre? The one that most people play in private rooms, their little dance around death, light and approaching as a feather. Awkward fumbling only goes so far; Blaine would much rather have a co-ordinated dancer in his bed, and that is what Mike Chang is.

Blaine has systematically fallen in love with every good-looking guy that has come along. He can't think of a single guy within two years of his age that he has not found attractive, attractive enough to want to snog. He supposes that if he includes Rachel, there's also a few girls. Most of the New Directions girls are quite attractive. The Asian girl - what's her name, Tina? Yes, she's also very attractive. Perhaps because she looks like Mike.

Mike rolls over in bed and a sleekly muscled arm slides over Blaine's bare side.

"You're awake," Mike says, satisfaction and contentment humming through every word. "Good."

"Good," Blaine says. He smirks. "Care for Round Two?"

He tastes like coffee and chocolate. And warmth, warmth like freshly-baked bread, hot and steaming out of the oven.

Steamy. Yes. Blaine gasps as Mike decides to lead him into the little death's dance once more. Just one hand, and Blaine is glad to give up the lead, the tempo, yielding it to his partner.

It is the morning and they are in New York. The alcohol is _still_ free-flowing, even despite the sheer hi-jinks that went on last night. Even as the Warblers mix with the all-girls' school's show choir, and everyone wakes up in different beds than they went to sleep in, usually with a partner (or sometimes two, or in Jet's case, three, all blondes and confused about their sexuality, while Jet lies back and grins madly) (Blaine wants to know what he'll tell his girlfriend)

It is the morning and their nationals competition is very, very soon. He's young yet, so he doesn't get hangovers, which is good because he can concentrate on being thoroughly mortified. From what he can remember, Mike did _all the work. _Clearly, he'll have to seduce Mike tonight and force Mike to let him top. Or something. Not that he was going to seduce a straight guy again. Since Mike was holding on to that Asian girl's hand.

Yet...Mike didn't seem to be complaining.

"Blaine?" Kurt said, coming up behind him and resting a hand on the small of his back. Blaine tensed, then forced himself to relax.

"Yes, Kurt?"

"I'm sorry if I'm being intrusive, but...where did you sleep last night?"

"On the balcony," Blaine lied smoothly, and fake-shivered. "It was cold. I was drunk, and it was a horrible, horrible idea."

Kurt laughed. "You should've found me. I would've given you a blanket."

No, Kurt, Blaine tells him silently. If I'd found you, you would have tried to snuggle up to me and blame the alcohol later. And I...I'm not interested in you, not that way, not anymore. We can still go on coffee dates though, and eat Red Vines, and drink the coffee orders that we know about each other, but I don't think the two of us will work out.

Of course, he says none of this.

"What's for breakfast?" Blaine asks. "I'm so hungry, I could eat you right up."

Kurt laughs and backs away. "I'm not fat at all, I wouldn't be very juicy."

"With enough salt and pepper, you would be," Blaine says, and advances, baring his teeth and grinning. "I bet you would be _delicious._ Some breast, a bit of haunch..."

He _knows_, on the other hand, that Mike _is_ delicious. He tasted Mike enough last night; on his skin and at his neck where the pulse was, the thready pulse fluttering against his tongue, lips, and teeth. He tasted Mike's unique taste, and his ... other tastes, the inside of his mouth, the scent of his cologne wreathing around him.

"Why, Blaine, are you staring at my ass?" Kurt bats his eyelashes and laughs, and walks away, shakin' dat ass.

"Sounds legit," Blaine says. Blaine makes no effort to walk closer to Kurt - Kurt is observant enough (or jealous enough, or stalkery enough) that he could smell an unfamiliar scent on Blaine, and that would just raise a series of questions that Blaine doesn't want to get into right now.

Plus it's a buffet next door, and Blaine is _ravenous. _He takes a deep breath as he steps into the room. He orients straight for the hotdogs. Freshly-baked bread, the steaming kind, and...that smells like... (A blonde taps him on the shoulder. He turns to talk to her, realising with a short man's delight that she's actually _shorter_ than him, rare as that is)...it smells like _excellent_ sausages.

The next morning, the Warblers perform their number. Running his hands down his body for the song, Blaine eyes Mike the whole time, who gives him a thumbs up from the audience and a white-toothed smile.

Is it wrong for him to want to have fun, rather than to get into a serious relationship? He's had enough of romance - he wants it to be convenient, casual, and most of all, have supermegafoxyawesome se-nights. Nights. He meant nights.

Kurt's voice resounds against his, and Blaine tastes the bitter taste of guilt. It is nothing like coffee.

But Blaine's young, and he wants to be wild.

* * *

**Prev: **Blaineofsky **Now:** Bike Chanderson **Next:** Kurt/Mike


	14. KurtMike

**Prev:** Bike Chanderson **Now:** Kurt/Mike

Never mind happy Valentine's Day...happy birthday, m'love?

* * *

**14 Reasons I Love You

* * *

**

_1. I feel like a city mouse who became like a country mouse and met you, this beautiful vibrant country mouse...then went back to the city. All these wonders; like an automated haircut place, ten dollars a haircut, you put the money in a machine like a vending machine...the sounds of Chinese music playing, booming out two minutes away from a techno beat...the tassels dangling from the lanterns I _know _you'll try to touch, except you'll be too short so I'll lift you up until you can. All these wonders I want to show you, I want you to be there with me...across an ocean away...

* * *

_

_Every story has a happy ending, if you stop at just the right point. _

_Of course, if you go on long enough, everything ends in tears._

_Death takes us all. _

_But still: the time to dance with death or the little death has not yet come._

_Of course, if you would like to dance the little death with me, I can always accommodate._

_

* * *

_

Kurt watched him from his vantage point, cursing himself all the while.

A car passed by outside, its headlights bright against the night-time. Engines roared as a plane flew overhead.

This...these feelings...they shouldn't be coming again. Despite what Mercedes had said, Kurt didn't believe that he was capable of having yet another heartbreak forced upon him. The next time that happened, _if_ it happened at all, he would just...roll up into a little ball and rock in a corner.

The taller, skinny boy tilted the porcelain teapot over, and coppery liquid flowed out of it to splash, steaming, into his teacup.

"Tea?" he asked, looking up. His apron read 'Mike Chang', and then two symbols underneath it, which were probably his name in Mandarin.

Kurt dove behind his menu, a little too late.

"Haha," Mike said, approaching him with a serving tray. "Nice try. What's your name?"

With surprise, Kurt noticed that Mike seemed young; early twenties, at most, like him. "Kurt Hummel," he said.

"Oh," Mike said, then set the serving tray down and stuck out his hand. "I noticed that you were looking." He grinned. "Guess I'm just that attractive, huh."

Kurt buried himself behind the menu, heat flushing to his face.

The menu was forced aside, and Mike's face was abruptly very close to his. "What's the matter?"

Kurt pushed himself backward to get away from Mike. "N-nothing," he said. "Nothing."

"Ohh..." Mike said, looking away and up. "I get it. You're shy!" He untied the apron at the back and snapped it onto the wall with a flick of his wrist. The apron soared across the room and landed neatly on the hook. Kurt watched it in astonishment, then had to refocus on Mike as Mike grabbed his hand and entwined their fingers.

Mike's hand was so warm. And coarse.

"Let's go for a walk, okay? We'll get to know each other a little better, and then you won't be so shy!"

"B-B-But," Kurt stuttered, too shocked to be melancholic or resistant, "What about your restaurant?"

Mike sniffed, and turned the 'Open' sign to 'Closed' as they went out.

As Mike determinedly towed Kurt along, he waved hi to other people, who simply watched them with knowing looks. Kurt bowed his head, and tried to remember himself being stronger, but _could not focus. _The warmth of Mike's hand clasped in his overrode all other sensations - including the horrors that always lurked in the back of his mind.

That peace was enough that Kurt let himself be dragged along, and didn't try to escape, not once. Even though Mike was dragging him and Kurt had no say - or no real clue - where they were going, his hand...his presence...they were no cage.

"I'm Mike Chang," Mike said, as he pulled Kurt into a park littered with lamp-posts, with red Chinese lanterns swinging on every branch of the trees. Big ones, little ones, plastic and paper contraptions, traditional and modern, foldable and unfoldable.

Candles lit up some of the lanterns; their paper material ranged from translucent to opaque, so they formed various shades ranging from red to pink.

It looked like a Valentine's Day celebration, only Chinesier.

Kurt stifled a s nort.

"Mid-autumn Lantern Festival," Mike murmured, right next to Kurt's ear. Kurt stiffened. "Would you like to see the lights with me?"

"Y-yes," Kurt said, and smiled. Mike held Kurt's hand.

"Oh, and you're cute."

Kurt felt heat rush to his face again.

* * *

Time passed, as it will, and Kurt found himself walking over to Mike's restaurant whenever he could, when the nightmares got too much. No matter how late, Mike was inside, serving tea to some late-night patron, and would always look up with a smile whenever he got near. The shifts from coffee to tea would occasionally break Kurt's brain, just as the shift from childhood memory to Mike's teasing flirtation would occasionally cause him to freeze up.

Still...

"Hey, Kurt, do you want to go and watch a movie with me, sometime?"

"What are we watching?"

"Kung Fu Panda 2."

"Er..."

"What?"

"Isn't that...stereotypical? Je ne sais pas, but...aren't you supposed to look at that sort of thing with disfavor because it's not real?"

"C'mon, Kurt, do you think it's offensive if you buy a beret to wear? That's the same thing."

"...I guess..."

Such interesting arguments. Interesting? Random. Mike was one of a kind.

* * *

Halcyon days.

Autumn turned to winter, and back into spring. Another Valentine's Day passed, another of his birthdays. Mike went aboveboard for that, and Kurt realised that after five years of never dating (after Jesse, really), somewhere in the middle of repeated park trips, talking late at night, and lots and lots of tea, he'd actually gotten himself a boyfriend.

He hadn't even _tried _to be cute.

"Mike?"

"Yes, Kurt?"

"...Will you be my boyfriend?"

"Sure. What took you so long?"

...Considering Mike's reaction, perhaps he should have realised earlier.

* * *

"One moment. Have to make a new regular."

"Huh?" Kurt asked, and then Mike dragged someone else out the door, a girl with her eyes wide.

Kurt laughed under his breath, and took a sip of his tea. Mm. A little too sweet, that mixture.

He remembered a time when watching Blaine haul off his latest partner (to a public place, let alone a romantic hotspot like that park) was a source of the most unearthly pain, a twinge in his heart that tingled all over his body, even in his teeth, an aching and a gnawing and a pain like beating his head repeatedly against a glass panel. So much jalousie, seeing Blaine with every boy. Watching Mike with the girls and boys that he dragged out of the door, strangely enough, gave him nothing more than humor.

Kurt tried to imagine Noah dragging someone out the door like that, and snorted into his tea.

Mike returned a moment later, the girl trailing behind him.

"Park?" Kurt asked, resting his head on his chin.

"Yeah," Mike said, and chuckled quietly. "Maybe I should take you along next time. There was this squirrel-"

"-It was a _dangerous_ squirrel, Mike," the girl said, already at ease with the both of them despite having just stepped into Mike's restaurant. "Very fast, reckless...he went straight for your nuts..."

Kurt sniggered into his tea, and Mike gave him a mock-glare.

"I'm sure Kurt and the squirrel would share a very close similarity," Mike said, his nose pointed straight up in the air.

"Absurdite!" Kurt said. "_I've_ never gone for your nuts."

The girl giggled, then clapped her hand over her mouth.

"But you want to, wink wink nudge nudge," Mike said, then made suggestive gestures.

Kurt clapped his own hand over his eyes. "Save me," he groaned.

"Gladly," Mike said, stepped forward, and picked Kurt up.

"I didn't say you could pick me up," Kurt said, his mouth twisting into a pout, his hand still over his eyes.

"I'm pretty good at picking up boys, though," Mike said. "Can you resist this body?" Supporting Kurt by putting a knee on Kurt's former chair and making Kurt rest on that knee, he brought a hand up to grasp Kurt's and place it on his stomach.

Toned muscles. On Mike's stomach.

Kurt might have moaned. Maybe.

He might also have leaned in to savor the smell of Mike's mingled chocolate and jasmine tea. Maybe.

The girl's giggling behind them intensified, but Kurt was _much_ too pre-occupied to notice her.

Mm. Chocolate and jasmine.

* * *

"What are you doing with that chocolate-oh! Mm. _Mm._"

_Crunch._

"...Delicious, isn't it?"

"How did you manage to get the popcorn inside?"

"My genius, of course."

"Wait till I show this to Mercedes."

* * *

Spring turned to summer, to fall, to winter. Having known Mike for more than two years now, having been officially dating for about six months, Kurt could feel justified in criticising Mike. His fashion sense, anyway.

"Is that cashmere? Are you seriuously wearing cashmere?"

"What's wrong with cashmere?"

"It's so..." Kurt pursed his lips. "Not you. It makes me itchy."

"You're allergic to cashmere?"

"No...yes. Yes I am. I am _very_ allergic to cashmere."

"Well, I don't want to take it off."

"I _do."_

"Hey! ...Heh heh heh. Mission accomplished."

"What?"

"Kurt, I never knew you'd rip my clothes off in public...in broad daylight...where anyone could see..."

Kurt flushed red. "Shut up, Mike."

* * *

"I have concluded that..."

"Oui?"

Mike shivered. "...Hearing you speak French is the _sexiest_ thing on Earth."

"Hearing you speak Mandarin isn't that far behind."

"Oh?"

"Je t'aime," Kurt whispered.

"Wo yao na ni, diu ni dao wo chuang shang..."

"I've heard 'I love you' in Mandarin before, Mike, and _that wasn't it_..." Kurt said, narrowing his eyes at the other man.

"If it makes you happy, I didn't get to the 'hot monkey sex' part," Mike offered.

Kurt glared at him.

* * *

"You know, Mike, it's been almost a year now and I still don't know who you hang out with. I mean, every night I come by, no matter how late, you're in the shop."

"Wo...I mean, I..."

"You didn't give up friends to be with me, did you?" Kurt asked, alarmed.

"Oh yes!" Mike said, pressing his hands to his chest and swivelling around, a leg lifted. "My love! Wo de ai ren! I gave up all of my shi-jie connections, all my worldly connections, to be with you, my love!"

"Burst into flames and die," Kurt said without looking up.

"Kaboom," Mike said, his hands and arms emulating a blossom of flickering flames.

Kurt gave that grandiose proclamation and gesture exactly what it _deserved._

When Kurt had recovered from the extremely hearty face-slap he'd given himself, he turned back to Mike. "No, seriously."

"What about _your _friends?" Mike asked.

"I've introduced you to Mercedes, haven't I? And, I mean, you know some of my background..."

Mike looked away. "Okay..." he said. "I don't have any other friends, apart from the regulars, who have their own lives. One of my best friends was my girlfriend, a long time ago. After her ex-boyfriend, my ex-best friend, died in a car crash, she withdrew from me and I...I've never been able to recover from that. Not until now," he looked up, staring at Kurt. "Not until you."

* * *

"You play the guitar?"

"I _try _to play the guitar. I picked it up from the Internet. Also...my ex-best friend...he...used to play the guitar, too."

"Je ne sais pas...pass me the guitar?"

Planes, overhead.

* * *

Tea, and steamed buns.

White buns, hot out of the pan. Kurt picked at it with his chopsticks, as Mike sat and watched him.

"I...Kurt."

"Yes, Mike?"

"My grandfather. He's...sick. I have to go back to China."

"You have to _what_?"

Chopsticks, clattering to the floor. Chair, scraped back over tile.

"It's family, Kurt!" Mike rose to his feet. Palms, slammed on table. "You can't deny me my family!"

"No, I..." Kurt tried to protest. "I know."

"I'm sorry, Kurt, I understand," Mike said. "I just...I'm not your first boyfriend, okay? There's no danger. No war. I'll come back quickly. The time'll be up before you know it."

"No, you don't...take all the time you need," Kurt said, swallowing. "Je...Je ne veux pas vous retenir. Don't stay here. Go back." Kurt placed a hand on Mike's chest, and trailed down.

"One memory?"

"To add to the rest, you mean?"

"Kurt..."

"Mike...!"

Chairs, turned over. 'Open' sign flipped over. Regulars, rebuffed. Regulars, horrified. Female short blonde regulars, oddly turned on.

* * *

Mike sat in the corner of his grandfather's bedroom, holding an open palm to the light pouring in the window. Splaying his fingers open and closed, open and closed, Mike changed the shafts of light playing between his hands.

"Qian..." his grandfather rasped. Mike was over to his grandfather in a flash, sinking to his knees. "Wo...ni ah, ni yo le qi zi le ma?"

"Mei yo," Mike said, shaking his head.

"Na ge...zhang nu hai...ta hai hao ba?"

"Ta hai hao," Mike said, nodding so his grandfather could see him clearly. "Dan shi wo...wo bu ai shan ta."

"Hao," his grandfather wheezed, and closed his eyes, his gnarled hand looking for Mike's. Mike gave it, and held his grandfather until his grandfather slept.

Night came, and Mike slipped out the door, his mother busily applying wet cloths to his grandfather's forehead.

* * *

_I look around me and all I see is sights I want to show you._

* * *

"Hey mister, hey mister, gi' us a li'l coin, why won't ya? We'll show y' t' a place where y' can _double_, no _triple_ y'r money! Gi' us a tip, eh?"

"Je ne parle pas anglais," Kurt refused, smiling gently.

"Oh, it's a Frenchie! Rat, up an' center!"

"Monsieur, monsieur!"

"Oui?" Kurt said, having to stop.

"De nous donner un peu d'argent! Il ya une place ou votre argent sera _deux_ fois plus...non, _trois_ fois plus!"

"Merci, mais non. Va mon argent a la Chine."

"Oh?" Rat said, as Kurt hurried away.

"'E ses 'is m'ney is goin' to China," Rat said.

The first boy raised his eyebrows. "Wait ti'l Garrin hears ab't that! Story'll be 'nuf to buy us bread f'r a coupl' nights!"

"Yeh!" Rat said, walking back to their beggin' spot. "Who's ev'r herd of a Fr'nchie givin' money to a Chineeman?"

"Ush'ly it's the o'thr weh 'round!" the other boy sniggered.

* * *

"Cor, those p'ncakes look good, mademoiselle!"

Kurt whirled around. Did that boy Rat follow him around on his errands, and all the way to the cafe?

His thoughts wandered to Mike. How was Mike doing?

* * *

Firecrackers.

Mike sighed and covered his ears as they went off, peppering the area with small, loud explosions. As the hustle and bustle surrounded him, Mike saw so many things he'd love to share with Kurt; the designer haircuts available for $10 a pop, the chocolate bars where they made chocolate in front of you, to your specifications - with his love for all things chocolatey, they could put Kurt on the front of a Koko Krunch ad and he wouldn't look terribly out of place.

Mike chuckled, feeling so Western in a large crowd of Chinese.

A boy he'd left, over the ocean, in America...

* * *

The little bird Rat had left Rachel chittered happily in one corner of the cafe.

The cage...Kurt sat near the bird, drinking his tea. It wasn't Valentine's, and Kurt wanted to remember Mike, happily pouring tea and talking to him, listening to him. He lifted a hand, and the bird hopped through the cage's open door, landing on his finger.

"Hey, little buddy," Kurt said.

Mike. Letters took so long to arrive, and Internet access in Mike's family home was spotty. And yet for all that Kurt had every faith that Mike would come back to him.

Unlike Noah. Unlike Blaine. Even unlike Brittany.

He had to go back and rewatch that Youtube video...then find the documentary somewhere. The Ignored War, indeed. Kurt thought again of the masses of graves, his best friends when he was young, and thought of Mike's hand, fingers intertwined with his.

Slowly...he was healing.

The bird hopped back in the cage, its yellow breast swelling with air, readying a truly impressive trill. Kurt had heard it once or twice before.

"Today's the same day as yesterday," Kurt hummed under his breath. "...Are you a saint? Everyday's a saint day..."

* * *

Mike fought a yawn, watching his cousin get married to man he'd never met. He had to admit, she looked beautiful in a red dress, sweeping up the aisle, her face obscured by the veil.

His breath choked off when he considered Kurt in red, looking up at him demurely, as he waited by the altar.

...Nah.

The porcelain doll of the siamese cat was in the lobby when he left. It swung its paw up and down, up and down. Mike spared it a glance. He could do with some luck. The international mail systems in China were...spotty.

* * *

Kurt had resumed marking off the days in red pen again. For the years he had known Mike, he'd gone off it slowly. Every day, he had stared at the red pen when he awoke, and left it alone.

When Mike left him, Kurt took the red pen, and one by one, crossed off the days.

He re-established his old routine, pre-Mike. His feet never took him in the direction of Mike's cafe, instead going back to the daily drudgery of work, home, sleep, cafe on Tuesdays and Saturdays. One by one, the regulars of Mike's restaurant came by the cafe, to talk to Kurt about when Mike would return. Kurt couldn't answer them. Mike had never said. He didn't know. But he trusted that Mike would return. The regulars accepted that, after a while.

The package, when it arrived, gave him photographs. Photographs, old and faded, of Mike as a child, running around on dirty streets with antiquated, unfamiliar architecture.

On the back of each photograph, a caption, a comment, in Mike's scrawl.

"8th June: Me, Tina, and Artie."

Kurt stared at the photograph.

Was it...

Pain, and loss, and fate.

He wondered if he could find Brittany again, properly, and maybe introduce her to Mike. But...would it be nice, to re-introduce her to such pain? To remind her of him and her past in their hometown, let alone that her boyfriend had had a...clone...in America...and...

Yeah, no.

But...

* * *

He'd laughed, bitterly, when he watched the documentary. In it, the people who'd interviewed Brittany had called her caretaker a 'kindly soul flown in by the Americans who watched over the broken children of the town.' Kindly soul. His _ass._ He'd been just as broken as the rest of them, made _especially_ so by a filcking American.

Moments later, he retracted that thought and laid in a prayer to Noah, up in heaven.

Still, at least the narrator had mentioned that they had never had proof of this.

He...needed closure, himself.

"Hello? Santana speaking."

Kurt'd gone through almost a solid month of bureaucratic maneuvering, but he was finally here, outside Brittany's house's door. The intercom buzzed with Santana's voice.

"Miss Santana, ah, I'd like to speak to Brittany."

"Well, you can't," Santana said. "She doesn't need to speak to you. Good day."

"Wait! Tell her...tell her that Kurt's come to find her. From her hometown. I took care of her, mademoiselle, madame, _please_. I only want to see her, just once."

The gate opened, but Kurt could sense the reluctance through the intercom. "What's your name?"

"Kurt. Kurt Hummel."

"Do you know what her boyfriend's name was?"

"R.T. We were in choir together. He sang me the proper lyric to his song. It was English and it made no sense but it sounded good. He wrote a song in Francais to her as well, but he never completed it."

The intercom did not buzz. Santana stood at the front door, her eyes fixed upon him.

* * *

Brittany was in a wheelchair at the back of the estate. Santana watched him with narrowed eyes, as he approached her. Brittany had been staring out into the pines for quite some time.

"Brittanie," Kurt said, softly. "Ne vous souvenez de moi?"

Her head came up, slowly.

"J'ai pris soin de vous..." Kurt dropped his eyes. "Je suppose qu'il est ironique de constater que vous etes maintenant dans un fauteuil roulant."

Santana watched this foreign boy who claimed to have taken care of Brittany babble a torrent of unfamiliar words. French-sounding, fair enough...and Brittany had sung French songs, over and over and over, French nursery rhymes, in their bed for near to four years, clutching her. When Santana had found them on the Internet, every one of them had involved war, and death, and love, and the incapability of loving again.

"Desole, Brittanie. La guerre...mon esprit a ete rompu suite."

Brittany remained watching the pines, although her hands clenched at the wheels, occasionally.

"Je vous laisse maintenant. Vous n'aurez pas a me revoir."

He turned, and bowed to Santana, who was still eyeing him suspiciously.

"I'm sorry for wasting your time, madame. It appears that Brittanie no longer remembers me. I remember where the gate is, thank you."

Santana scowled at him. Kurt nodded, fighting back tears, and turned.

"Je suis desole, Brittanie," Kurt said, pausing. "Je vous pas manque quand j'ai pris soin de vous."

His jaw clenched, and he opened the door.

"Attendez," Brittany whispered. "Arret!"

Kurt stopped at the door, but did not turn around. Santana looked at her in concern. Brittany was crying, sobbing noiselessly, her shoulders shaking, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her gaze was still firmly fixed on the pines in front of her, though.

"Kurt...si c'est vous, vous saurez..."

"Je sais...quoi?"

"Today's a saint day..."

"And tomorrow's a saint day," Kurt finished, the answering words what R.T. had sung for his girlfriend, that Kurt knew, because he'd helped R.T. with the countermelody.

"Saints are for today,"

"Everyday's a saint day..."

"Are you a saint?"

"...Brittanie, please."

"Kurt...Kurt!" On the tile, metal wheels clattered on it as the wheelchair turned. Kurt closed his eyes.

A weight hit him from behind, Brittanie's familiar tackle-hug but with so much less weight than he recalled, her voice into his shoulder, her arms around him, her warmth, her voice, the same accent as his, from his childhood, the last reminder of his childhood childhood, before Noah and aircraft and war.

Kurt clutched the door handle and sobbed with her, tears rolling down her cheek, rolling down the back of his neck and from his eyes.

Santana watched them, her eyes sad.

* * *

When time allowed, Mike slipped into an Internet cafe and checked the American news. He wanted to see what would be affecting Kurt.

'The Caretaker Emerges' is the first story that caught his eye.

Mike read through it in a mounting haze of disbelief. This...this is what Kurt did? Had gone through?

He...wanted to go back to America. He wanted to hold Kurt, to let Kurt know that he knew, he was alright with what Kurt did, wanted to comfort him and sleep with him at nights if he woke up with nightmares. If he had gone through half as much as Kurt did, he _knew_ he would've woken with nightmares, too.

He signed off the computer and left the internet cafe, baking slowly under the humid summer heat.

Back, back to unwelcome news.

* * *

The letter, when it arrived, didn't really surprise Kurt. It devastated him, yes, broke his heart yes, but he could've guessed it. Mike had to stay in China for the foreseeable future. His grandfather was teetering on the edge of death, and

He said as much to Mercedes, over their biweekly cup of coffee.

Mercedes looked at him.

"Honestly, Kurt, you'd think you only had a one-night stand with the man."

"What?" Kurt said, sitting up. "How could you say that?"

"Kurt," Mercedes said, closing her eyes and letting out a sigh. "This isn't a war. You can _fly_ to him. China's not going to close their borders to you."

"I...I don't know," Kurt said, staring down at his coffee cup. "I guess I'm...I'm scared that when I get there, Mike won't want me, anymore."

"Have courage, Kurt," Mercedes said, and rose, preparing to leave. Her popcorn pack had been emptied quite some time ago. She patted him on the hand and left.

Bump-thwack, bump-thwack, went her heels on the tiles. Kurt sat, shocked. The looms' steady sound morphed into the throbbing of his own heart.

* * *

Kurt stood behind the lines of people queuing up for the boarding gate, and readjusted the sling-bag on his shoulder.

The sounds of jet engines, in front of him.

Kurt took a deep breath, and handed his ticket to the attendant.

* * *

**Prev:** Bike Chanderson **Now:** Kurt/Mike

**Epilogue:**

"It's not right to do this, Mike! Your grandfather's dying!"

"All the more important that we do this _now_. If one of us was a girl, it would be even _more _symbolic."

"Why?"

"We'd be making babies. Birth...death..."

"I would be on the pill, Mike. ...Don't give me that look. Or that leer. Or even...Mike!"

"I just find it suiting that we should be dancing for the little death. Big death, little death..."

"Le petit mort? Ooh, _je l'aime."_

"...Have I mentioned that you're terribly sexy speaking in French?"

"_Where_ did you even learn that term, anyway?"

"One-night stand, a while ago when I visited France. Nice French boy, dark haired, greenish-eyed...Kurt? Are you alright? Kurt? Wo de ai ren...gen wo jiang hua! Kurt!"


End file.
